An Atlanta man claims his iPhone 6 Plus caught fire when he was charging it in his home, setting his bed on fire in the process.
“There were sparks and flames,” said David Grimsley. “The whole apartment could have burned down.”
In the end, Grimsley says he managed to move the iPhone off the burning blanket and onto a hard surface, where the fire eventually died out.
Apple promised to send a replacement phone, but Grimsley says he’s disappointed by the company’s response.
“I thought they’d be more concerned, or check to see if I got burned or anything was damaged,” he noted, saying that, “I’m kind of nervous about plugging [the new iPhone] in and leaving it on the bed or anywhere it could catch fire. It could happen again.”
While this kind of story is statistically rare, it’s not the first time we’ve heard something similar. Earlier this month, we wrote about a man forced to strip in public after his own iPhone 6 Plus caught fire while in the front pocket of his jeans.
Last year, a plane bound for Prague had to be evacuated after an iPhone 5 caught fire in a passenger’s bag, filling the cabin with smoke — although fortunately none of the 150 passengers boarding the plane when the fire started were hurt.
Although Apple devices have been known to spontaneously combust of their own accord (most infamously, the 1996-era PowerBook 5300 which saved the world in the original Independence Day had to be recalled after two production units caught fire), much of the time these kinds of stories are reported it turns out to be the result of a dodgy, third-party charger or similar.
It will be interesting to hear if this latest incident is another case along those lines.
Source: Fox5Atlanta
