They determined the cause of the fire that burned a neighbor's house down, a total loss.

[NNadir]

It happened in September, probably about 100 meters down the block, at 2 AM. Somehow or another my wife and I didn't hear all the fire trucks. We didn't know it happened until we saw the burned out hulk of a totally destroyed home, with only a brick wall remaining intact.

Happily the two adults and three children got out of the house unharmed, but they lost everything. Neighbors apparently contributed clothing, school materials for the kids, and other things. Nice people live on my block.

The fire was apparently caused by an overheated lithium battery on a portable electric drill being recharged overnight.

My lawn mower and snow blower are battery powered, my objection to batteries that mark me as a hypocrite, notwithstanding. Interestingly, the brand I use, Ego, has designed their batteries with a cooling grid to be in a U shape to foster heat exchange. The charger also has a blower.

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If the battery is not left in the charger, which draws low current, it will discharge and need to be recharged, destroying exergy: All batteries destroy exergy so there's that. I reason that it's still safer than storing gasoline.

Understanding the "fix" the battery brand features, I have been looking a little cross eyed at the charger and batteries.

I only recharge during daylight hours because we do have - although I'm not fond of it - solar capacity in New Jersey. I don't regard solar energy as "green," and don't own or want to own solar cells, but I concede that they are slightly superior to dangerous natural gas and coal, which on my grid, the PJM, are prominent sources of primary energy to generate electricity. Thus I make this concession, probably a good idea, because if the batteries catch fire, I'll be awake and around to do something about it.

Be careful of your batteries. (I did once have a computer that caught fire, but I was with it at the time and quickly unplugged it.)