In what Samsung officials must be desperately hoping isn’t a warning sent from the smartphone gods, a Samsung store in Singapore caught fire on the even of the company launching its new Galaxy S8 announcement.
This isn’t the first time Samsung has had issues with fires in recent times. The company’s highly-touted Note 7 had to be withdrawn from the market after showing an alarming tendency to burst into flames, while there have also been reports of Samsung brand washing machines doing the same.
In both cases, Samsung was forced to carry out a worldwide product recall, although in the case of the Note 7 it’s now being reissued as a refurbished handset.
“We were alerted to a fire at the Samsung Experience Store at AMK Hub in the early hours of Tuesday morning before store opening hours,” Samsung revealed in a statement regarding its store fire. “The fire was extinguished by water sprinklers in the store and no one was injured during the incident. We are currently assessing the property damage and working closely with the authorities to determine the cause of the fire.”
The store is closed temporarily, and investigations into the cause are ongoing.
Source: CNET
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
