for your consideration4 Die in Fire Caused by Batteries in E-Bike Shop Near Chinatown
The blaze, which left two others in critical condition, began on the first floor of a building at 80 Madison Street shortly after midnight.
The fire began on a street that lies just outside the borders of Chinatown, near the Manhattan Bridge.Credit...Amir Hamja/The New York Times
By Hurubie Meko, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Winnie Hu and Ellen Yan
June 20, 2023
Four people died Tuesday morning in a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries, just the latest in a series of fatal blazes in New York as delivery people in the convenience-addicted city increasingly rely on electric vehicles.
The three-alarm fire at an e-bike service store, at 80 Madison Street near the Chinatown neighborhood, started around midnight and quickly spread through the business. About 140 firefighters and emergency personnel came to the six-story building, which includes residential apartments above the ground floor.
Six adults were taken to three area hospitals, where four of them — two women, 62 and 65 years old, and two men, 71 and 80 — died. The other two, both women, were in critical condition, the police said.
Tuesday morning’s fire, which was deemed accidental, was caused by a lithium-ion battery on the first floor, according to officials. The aftermath left soot smeared above the broken-out windows of the building, which also houses a deli, a laundromat and a news stand.
A mountain of charred e-bikes and scooters was piled up on the corner of the street.
“It is very clear that this was caused by lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes,” the fire commissioner, Laura Kavanagh, said at a Tuesday news conference at the scene of the blaze.
Such batteries are now one of the leading causes of fire deaths in the city, where e-bikes and scooters have become ubiquitous since the pandemic, widely used by delivery workers and for general transport. Officials are grappling with the flammability of their power sources, and have inspected stores and issued warnings after each fatality.
The Chinatown store, HQ Ebike Repair, had been cited by the Fire Department in August for violations related to charging lithium-ion batteries, as well as for the number of batteries and vehicles they had at the location, according to Daniel E. Flynn, chief fire marshal.
The store was found guilty in court and fined $1,600, he said. The department also issued violations to the business in 2021.
“We did do some surveillance recently at the location,” Mr. Flynn said, adding that investigators saw “many, many batteries,” though none were being charged at the time.
Reached by phone before the news conference, Biyun Liu, whose family opened the store about two and a half years ago, said he did not believe the e-bikes caused Tuesday’s fire.
“We turn off all the electric panels and we don’t charge anything inside the store. So there’s no way to catch fire,” he said.
Lithium-ion batteries, which also power devices like phones, laptops and power tools, have started 108 fires in New York City so far this year, Commissioner Kavanaugh said, and have led to 13 deaths. About 200 fires were linked to the batteries in 2022.
Fire officials and battery experts have said that the lithium batteries can catch fire even when they are not being charged.
In April, two siblings, a 19-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother, were killed in an “explosion of fire” caused by an e-bike that was being charged near the front door of an apartment building in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. In early May, a fire killed four people in an apartment in Washington Heights, where lithium batteries were later found.
“The volume of fire created by these lithium-ion batteries is incredibly deadly,” Commissioner Kavanagh said Tuesday morning. “We’ve said this over and over: It can make it nearly impossible to get out in time.”
Belal Alayah, who was working Tuesday morning at his family’s deli on the corner, said he was about to close up shop around midnight when a customer ran in and told him about the fire. Mr. Alayah, 25, said he walked outside and saw “a circle of flames” burning through the e-bike store’s metal gate.
“It looked like it was melting,” he said. He called 911.
Within minutes, smoke filled the block, including his deli. “We packed our bags and ran out,” he said.
The Red Cross said in a tweet that it was providing emergency shelter for eight households, comprising 23 adults and two children.
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Officials have struggled to contain the risk of battery fires as electric vehicles have become widespread in New York.Credit...Amir Hamja/The New York Times
For many neighbors, the warning was the smell of smoke that wafted into their homes.
Shirley Ngai, who lives in a third-floor apartment above the store, said she was heading to bed when her mother smelled smoke. Ms. Ngai, 54, looked out the apartment door and then called back to her mother, who is 85, blind and has dementia.
“There’s black smoke everywhere, we’ve got to get out,” she recalled. “I just grabbed my mom and said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’”
During the commotion on the third floor, Ms. Ngai’s said her next door neighbor, an older woman, asked her what was going on, she said.
“I told her it’s a fire, that she needs to leave,” she said.
Moments later, firefighters arrived and helped Ms. Ngai and her mother out of the building. Once she made it outside, Ms. Ngai said she peered through the smoke, scanning the crowd for her neighbor. She did not see her.
Mr. Alayah, the deli worker, said he stood on the block with about 200 others, as sirens blared and people screamed, watching as firefighters broke windows and worked to extinguish the flames.
At around 3 a.m., firefighters began removing charred bikes from the store and piling them on the corner in front of his shop.
The cause of the fire was under investigation Tuesday morning, the New York Fire Department said.CreditCredit...Belal Alayah
Jacky Wong, coordinator of Chinatown Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that advocates shared ownership to build financial equity, said that fires in the neighborhood were becoming more common because of e-bikes and buildings that were so old they were no longer up to code.
“Local housing advocates and policymakers have failed to address this issue for the past 40 years,” he said.
In March, New York City adopted laws banning the sale or lease of e-bikes and e-scooters that fail to meet safety standards and prohibiting the refurbishing of used lithium batteries.
Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan calling for the creation of a fire marshal task force focused on identifying high-risk situations and fire code violations. Fire officials have also shut down illegal charging stations in bike shops and bodegas.
Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, said Tuesday that the City Council was considering measures that would establish a program to buy back spent batteries and that would install safe charging stations.
“There’s a lot more we have to do, because there are approximately 65,000 e-bikes already in the city used for delivery by delivery workers,” he said.
For Marshal Lee, who has lived on Madison Street across from HQ Ebike Repair shop for two years, it was no surprise that the e-bike service store was the scene of a fire.
“It’s really dirty,” Mr. Lee said. “There’s always grease everywhere,” he said, pointing to the sidewalk outside the shop.
Mr. Lee, 30, said another e-bike shop on the block was clean and well-kept, but HQ Ebike Repair opened and appeared to put them out of business, he said.
“The place is always busy,” he said. “There’s always a line of people.”
Mable Chan contributed reporting.
JFYI
E-bikes are a thing
- Thread starter jdog
- Start date
Ian F
Well-Known Member
What fork does that have?
johnbryanpeters
Well-Known Member
As long as you have a carbide lamp so you can see it.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
It looks like it's own thing. Reminds me of a Trials Moto fork. It's inverted.
Skin suit or no? Aero helmet?
Helmets are lame, and what is a skin suit is that like being naked then sure if it's faster.
depends who is wearing it...
maybe a wing suit would add a new dimension (literally: up)
As long as you're smoking near it as well
Fat Trout
Well-Known Member
Riding allamuchy skin suit shold probly be Teflon
Kom the Sussex branch?
Ian F
Well-Known Member
Except for the socks. Must have $200 aero socks.
Now that Ebikes are a thing maybe change the thread title to EMTBNJ 😁
@jdog
I am gonna go through the poll and update my votes and you should too. I wonder how much change if answered honestly. Curious if the nevers had a change or even purchased. I'm super close to owning 2 emtbs and about to sell my geared hardtail.
That leaves me with old SS DH and road analog bikes that get zero turns. May take the DH out once or twice if I get around to brake bleed. Maybe just maybe the seven road to see if I want to keep it or just sell that. The SS is gonna be wall art because misfits are fucking dead.
@jdog
I am gonna go through the poll and update my votes and you should too. I wonder how much change if answered honestly. Curious if the nevers had a change or even purchased. I'm super close to owning 2 emtbs and about to sell my geared hardtail.
That leaves me with old SS DH and road analog bikes that get zero turns. May take the DH out once or twice if I get around to brake bleed. Maybe just maybe the seven road to see if I want to keep it or just sell that. The SS is gonna be wall art because misfits are fucking dead.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
I just sold my 2nd e bike. I keep trying to incorporate it into what I do but it ends up being more of a hassle than I’d like. The Globe was so dope but it would go about 16-17 miles and then need to be charged if I used it to actually replace my car. When I drop it down to a lower assist it’s the same as riding my normal bike so I don’t get anything out of it. It’s close to happening, the generation should do it.
SURRON USA
sur-ronusa.com
I think they have a DMN inverted fork. There is a bunch of videos on YouTube about them….. just search Serron.
No battery extender available? That globe must be a pig lol. What size battery do they come with?
de00304
Well-Known Member
Get the Tern HSD, with dual batteries it can go 150 miles on eco on low power end and 50 miles on turbo, with a 450lb cargo capacity. I replace about 9/10 car trips with the Tern
Dual battery on that bike is 1000 watt hours, spirited riding is 35w hr to 50w hr.
To go 150 miles on a 1000w pack in eco mode maybe you are out for a 12 hour ride and it's only helping 80 watts average the whole time. A 70lb bike needs 80 watts to get out of it's own way.
At best you can go 35 to 50 miles on a 1000w battery with that heavy bike
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Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
It's the same as every other Cargo bike out there. I can ride at 18-20mph on my normal bike so I want tit to be FASTER to replace the car. Which it does but I have to charge it all day during work and overnight when I get home and that's too much hassle. Plus I have to pull it inside because I don't have a spot to secure it outside and at 80lbs I hate dragging it up the stairs.