SEATTLE — A day after an e-cigarette explosion sparked a house fire in Tacoma, experts told KIRO 7 there may be occasional problems with overheating the device, a phenomenon of which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is aware.
One man was critically injured in the Tacoma fire, and he remained at Harborview Medical Center Wednesday. Four others were evacuated, including a woman who told neighbors her e-cigarette exploded, lighting the couch on fire.
A Tacoma Fire Department spokesperson said the e-cigarette likely overheated.
E-cigarettes are currently unregulated, but the FDA is currently making its final decision on whether and how to oversee the manufacturing and sales of the product. The public comment period for these proposed regulations ended in August.
KIRO 7 found that in the last two years, consumers have reported accidents to the FDA, including hot devices and exploding e-cigarettes.
In May of 2013, a consumer reported that he “heard a loud bang… [the e-cigarette] had shot into the hallway of our home and hit the door of our daughter’s room. It started a fire in our hallway.”
In December 2013, another user reported that an e-cigarette “exploded, cracking my upper denture, breaking my upper palate and nose, and igniting my face and sinus cavity.”
In February 2014, a consumer wrote to the FDA, saying “the heat coming from the heating mechanism is seeping through the edges of the portion of the cartridge that touches my lips.”
KIRO 7 found reports within the last two years from Florida, Georgia, and Arizona, among other places, where e-cigarettes have exploded or ignited a fire.
Bo Stansfield, a sales associate at E Cigs N’ Vapes in Seattle, said he has a hard time imagining how one could overheat an e-cigarette.
Each e-cigarette consists of a battery, a heating element, and a tank to hold liquid nicotine. The device heats the liquid nicotine into a vapor.
“One hundred percent of everything we sell here has overcharge protection,” Stansfield said. “We only sell batteries with high discharge rate amp limits.”
Still, he has anecdotally heard of occasional problems with e-cigarettes plugged into car adapters.
Ray Story, the CEO and founder of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, said anyone who feels their e-cigarette is getting too hot should unplug it if it is currently charging and call the manufacturer.
Unlike a smart phone that has a unique charger that accompanies it, Story said e-cigarettes can be charged with a variety of chargers and adapters that have a USB port. He said sometimes plugging the e-cigarette into any generic charger creates a situation where the device’s battery is not actually matched to the charger.
Still, Story said, “It’s the best product to compete against conventional tabaco. So it definitely has more pluses than negatives. We just need to make sure that we can clean up our act a little bit in respect to how manufacture that product and to make sure that it’s manufactured with the highest standards.”
He said he has worked closely with the FDA to begin regulations, that he believes will make it easier to track sub-par products and reduce the number of accidents.
KIRO
