deachman: after fatal ottawa fire, is it time to regulate e-scooter batteries in apartments?
4 minute read
smoke damage is visible on a 19th floor balcony at 395 somerset st. w. three people were killed after a fire investigators initially suspect may have been caused by a lithium-ion battery.
ashley fraser
/
postmedia
fire investigators looking into the cause of the march 14 blaze that claimed three lives identified a lithium-ion battery-powered e-scooter as a possible culprit.
if it turns out to be the root cause, the 19th-floor somerset street west fire won’t be an outlier, but another in a growing number of incidents involving the powerful batteries.
there have already been eight confirmed lithium-ion battery-related fires in ottawa this year, putting the city on pace to reach 39 by year’s end. that would represent an increase of 56 per cent over the 25 confirmed cases in 2025, and more than twice the 19 that occurred the year before.
it’s not for nothing that the theme of last october’s fire prevention week was “charge into fire safety: lithium-ion batteries in your home.”
they power much of modern life — not just e-scooters and e-bikes, but phones, tools, toys and mobility devices. earlier this year, a dog chewing on a heated glove battery sparked a house fire in orléans, while a two-alarm blaze in richmond was traced to a power tool battery.
at a recent conference, ottawa fire services fire prevention officer leanne labbee said it was estimated that the average household now has about 100 batteries in use at any given time — roughly three-quarters of them lithium-ion.
“the thing we have to remember,” she adds, “is if we follow all of the instructions and we treat the batteries with the respect that they deserve, they really are amazing batteries.”
the problem is how often we don’t. we overcharge them, use the wrong chargers, damage them without realizing it or leave them plugged in indefinitely.
in small apartments, people often leave their e-scooters and e-bikes where they’re most convenient: near the front door.
“now you’ve blocked your way out should something happen,” labbee says.
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balconies, meanwhile, often seen as a safe place to store or charge e-scooters and e-bikes, come with their own risks: exposure to extreme temperatures can damage batteries and contribute to what firefighters call “thermal runaway,” a rapid, uncontrollable buildup of heat that can lead to fire within seconds.
like cities everywhere, ottawa has spent years encouraging residents to adopt new forms of transportation to reduce reliance on cars. it’s a smart shift, both environmentally and economically. but the battery technology powering much of that shift has moved indoors, into apartments that weren’t designed with that in mind.
some other cities have begun grappling with the problem. the new york city housing authority, following a backlash against a proposal to ban e-scooters and e-bikes outright from public housing, instead enacted restrictions in 2024 on how they can be stored and charged. among them: only one battery can be charged at a time in a unit, while someone 18 or older must be present and awake while charging. additionally, e-scooters and e-bikes cannot be charged next to an apartment entrance door or within five feet of a radiator or other direct heat source, and can’t be charged in common areas except those designated by the nycha.
last year, to further reduce in-apartment charging, new york also expanded access to outdoor battery-charging and battery-swapping cabinets.
toronto, meanwhile, following a battery explosion and fire on a subway train in december 2023, banned e-bikes and e-scooters from all public transit vehicles and property from nov. 15 to april 15 each year, citing fire risks in enclosed spaces and concerns about temperature-related battery instability.
oc transpo does not currently prohibit e-bikes and e-scooters on trains. they cannot be used on oc’s rack & roll racks, while shared rental scooters, such as bird and neuron mobility, cannot be taken on buses. small personal e-scooters can.
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the provincial fire code, according to labbee, does not specifically address e-scooter and e-bikes. neither does ottawa community housing, which operates the somerset street high-rise where the recent fire occurred.
the city, according to ottawa fire services chief paul hutt, has no municipal regulations governing the storage or charging of lithium-ion batteries used in e-scooters and other mobility devices. regulation of their supply and import, he says, is a federal responsibility, while storage and handling are addressed through the canadian standards association (csa) and transportation of dangerous goods (tdg) regulations.
whether that needs to change is a conversation worth having. according to ottawa fire services’ nick defazio, lithium-ion batteries were suspected in just 1.5 per cent of ottawa fires over the past two years. but the numbers are trending in the wrong direction.
absent tougher restrictions, we can all do our part by reading and following instructions, using the right chargers, and not assuming that these batteries will forgive our carelessness.
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