Recharging electric scooter sparks blaze in Norway apartment

Firefighters in Norway are warning against recharging electric scooters indoors after a battery started a fire that tore through an apartment south of Oslo. Hans-Otto Schjerven, head of the Vestfold Fire Department, says rechargeable lithium batteries can cause “fires that are difficult to extinguish and the batteries emit fire that quickly spreads.” After the blaze, he says such batteries can be “capricious” and urged people to avoid recharging them indoors.

Schjerven says on facebook that although firefighters were quickly at the scene, one apartment was wrecked by the fire and three adjacent dwellings suffered smoke damage, forcing the tenants to spend the night elsewhere. Nobody was injured in the fire. Details of the scooter and its battery were not released.