The burning fact, the story of the 9V battery gone bad.

Submitted by DonHester on Wed, 08/20/2014 - 08:13.

The burning fact, the story of the 9V battery gone bad. East Wenatchee Home Inspection

Well till I found this while doing some other research I would of never thought of this. But there is a potential fire hazard when storing 9 V batteries. If you are like me I have many of these 9v batteries laying around in drawers and other areas. I never gave one thought that these could be potential issue for fire.

Turns out this has happened on several occasions. Now I am not saying this is a common occurrence but it could happen.

With the positive and negative terminals on a 9v battery being close together there is the potential if a metal object touches the two terminals causing a short circuit. This effect was like the old camping trick of using steel wool and a 9v battery as a fire starter.

So throwing those 9v batteries into a drawer or other storage area where it could potentially contact some metal such as aluminum foil, keys, pens, steel wool (duh), other batteries, bobby pins, pens etc… could heat up just enough to ignite a combustible object nearby such as tissue paper.

Below is a video on a house fire that was started by a 9v battery being collected for recycling.

As stated in the video and from the NFPA it should be good practice to place some electrical or duct tape on the terminals of a 9 v battery to prevent accidental ignition potential.

The NFPA suggest this-

Keep batteries in original packaging until you are ready to use them.

If loose, keep the posts covered with masking, duct, or electrical tape. Prevent the posts from coming in contact with metal objects.

Keep them someplace safe where they won’t be tossed around.

Store batteries standing up.

9-volt batteries should not be stored loose in a drawer. Do not store them in containers with other batteries.

Here is a couple link on this-

http://www.nfpa.org/~/media/files/safety%20information/safety%20tip%20sheets/9voltbatterysafety.pdf

https://www.nh.gov/safety/divisions/firesafety/news/20120808-9-volt-batteries.html

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The burning fact, the story of the 9V battery gone bad.