Lifejacket battery caught fire

During an inspection on a vessel in cold lay-up, the lifejackets stored underneath a sitting bench in the wheelhouse were found burned and melted. No-one was harmed; apart from the jackets, nothing was damaged.

What went wrong?

A Lithium battery (3.6v) had exploded in one of the self-igniting lights.  As the bench was in a properly closed position, without any gaps, the fire could not spread due to a lack of oxygen. Therefore the fire was not detected and did not activate a fire alarm, as the smoke was contained inside the storage compartment. Investigation showed that the battery of the “Lalizas 71209” life jacket light had expired five months earlier. 

A possible cause could be that this battery was exposed to moisture before the lay-up period and water ingress affected the battery content after the lifejacket was put back in storage.

Lessons and actions

• Store such equipment in a secure, dry and cool place away from flammable materials;
• Keep batteries of any kind away from metal objects to avoid short circuit between the terminals;
• Lithium batteries in your work place:
  • Assess where Lithium batteries are present and check, if possible, the condition of the battery and cover;
  • Verify the expiry date of the battery;
  • Regularly inspect batteries of lifejacket lights and other devices like radios as per planned maintenance schedule;
  • If batteries are expired or damaged, remove them and dispose of them properly;
• For laid-up vessels, it may be appropriate to consider whether or not to remove Lithium batteries and other hazardous materials from vessels before going onto lay-up.

Members may wish to refer  to:

• Lithium batteries: Fire following the failure of a helicopter start power unit
• LTI: Severe burn from short circuited Li-Ion battery
• PP3 9V battery explosion
• Potential engine room flooding: maintenance and equipment failure issues on a laid-up vessel
• For want of a watchman the ship was lost [a ship in lay-up burnt down]