Fires from the batteries of two-wheeled transportation devices are back in the headlines today. But this time, not the pesky e-bikes, but those bewildering personal transporters, after one set ablaze a Nanjing college dormitory.
The fire broke out yesterday evening, 17 November, in a Nanjing Institute of Communication dorm building. With flames erupting from a dorm room window and thick smoke billowing skyward, firefighters quickly rushed to the scene to bring the blaze under control.
The Jiangning Fire Brigade later verified that the fire was caused by a student charging the lithium battery of a personal transporter within the dorm room.
The practice of bringing personal transporters and/or their batteries into dorm buildings for charging has recently been prohibited by the Institute.
While the cause of the fire has been identified, no clear decision has yet been made on how to deal with the person responsible, reports The Paper.
Personal transporters are particularly popular in Nanjing Institute of Communication. So much so in fact, that administrators designated mini parking spaces for them at the entrances of teaching buildings, libraries, restaurants, etc. for students’ use.
The very existence of the popular little spaces even went viral, with internet users in China jokingly referring to the Institute as Nanjing Personal Transporter Media Academy (南京传媒学院平衡车学院).
Student dormitory fires are commonplace in China. At the end of 2019, the China Fire Department revealed that in the previous 5 years, there had been 2,314 student dormitory fires nationwide. Last night’s fire further shows the importance of adhering fire prevention best practice.
As for the devices themselves, personal transporters have caught on in China after being more or less ridiculed in their home country of the USA. After much controversy over alleged patent violations, Segway, the original trademark holder for the concept, was bought by Beijing-based Ninebot in 2015.
