Lithium-ion power bank fire causes extensive damage to Stittsville home
Posted Apr 6, 2026 12:03:45 PM.
Last Updated Apr 6, 2026 04:10:23 PM.
The Hammond family says they are lucky to be alive after a battery caught fire and seriously damaged their Stittsville home in its wake.
The product was a lithium-ion-powered bank meant to charge cellphones, and it was resting near Gabby’s bed on March 24. What transpired happened in seconds and caused burns to Gabby’s arm.
“I was sleeping and I heard a like a pop sound,” Gabby said in a video posted to Ottawa fire’s social media. “I sprung up out of my bed and then felt by arm kind of burning.”
She looked and saw that her portable charger was on fire.
“One second I was sleeping, and the next second my room was in flames,” she said.
Ottawa firefighters arrived to find the home ablaze within four minutes. The flames had spread through the roof of the single-family home. Battling the smoke and fire, crews were able to contain it to the second floor within 45 minutes, Nick DeFazio, public information officer with Ottawa fire, said, but not before the house suffered extensive damage.
Fire crews are warning the public about the risk of lithium-ion batteries after several fires reported in the last several years have been linked to the products. According to DeFazio, there have been nine suspected fires related to the batteries this year, and 30 reported in 2025.
One of the more high-profile incidents involving lithium-ion batteries happened when a dog accidentally started a fire in an Orléans home.
Internal security footage shared by the owners shows a dog on the couch chewing on a black ski glove; it, however, had a heating component charged by a lithium-ion battery. All of a sudden, the dog gets up, and the battery begins to smoke. Soon after, the dog retreats, but watching the smoke waft as the battery bursts into flames.
Crews arrived in four minutes and found heavy smoke and flames coming from a first-storey bay window at the front. They initiated a fast attack and quickly doused the fire. A team went inside the home and continued extinguishing the fire, while other crew members searched the residence and carried the dog outside, who was uninjured.
One adult, their child and the dog were displaced as a result of the fire.
Assistant division chief Jimmy Fata, said in the video that even though the batteries are small, they can “amount to a lot of fire damage.”
“Because once these batteries let go, they’re very hot and very, very dangerous,” he said.
Fata said that because the material next to Gabby’s power bank was flammable, the flames spread quickly, heavily damaging the room.
“You don’t think this could happen,” Dionne Hammond, Gabby’s mother, said in the video. “You don’t think one day you’re going to get up and all of a sudden there’s a fire in your home and you all of a sudden realize…everything is gone.”
Lithium-ion batteries are in everything
A public education campaign named Charged for LiFE said the batteries are in phones, laptops, e-scooters, vehicles and cameras.
There are a few steps people can take to prevent issues with the products, including not overcharging devices, only using certified brands, never attempting to modify the items and safely disposing of them when done.
People should stop using the batteries if they are emitting a smell, have a change in colour, are getting too hot, change in shape, leak or there are odd noises coming from them.
