South Whitehall boy was riding hoverboard when it burst into flames, family says

Jan. 27--SOUTH WHITEHALL -- Luke and Jack Habash were racing their hoverboards across the "Habash speedway," through the living room, the main hallway, the dining room and into the kitchen Wednesday morning when Luke suddenly jumped off his and started screaming.

His Swagway X1 was smoking.

"I looked over and there was this black smoke and it was ssshhhhzzz," the boys' mother Dana Habash said, mimicking the sound.

For a month the Habash children have been riding their hoverboards around the house on the 1700 block of Roth Avenue. Luke, 6, Jack, 8, and Olivia, 10, each got their own for Christmas.

"I read about the problems and we hesitated, but was the big item for them," Dana Habash said. Her husband, Jack Habash, was skeptical because he had heard news reports of safety issues with hoverboards, but went ahead and gave them to the kids.

The kids used them so much that the elder Jack called the route through their house "Habash speedway."

But the days of hoverboarding at the Habash house are over, just a week after the federal government launched an investigation into fires involving hoverboards from 13 different companies, including Swagway.

It was about 8:10 a.m. when Luke jumped off the hoverboard. It started burning in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and when Dana Habash threw water on it, the flames coming out the side grew. Luke called his dad in tears.

Olivia shouted, "Flour!" and grabbed a bag from the kitchen to throw on the Swagway. That seemed to work, so Dana Habash dumped two more loads of flour on it. By then her husband, who had just left for work, was back home.

Jack Habash carried it outside into the snow. Firefighters arrived minutes later and finished it off.

Habash said the battery inside popped twice like a firecracker once in the house, and once when he got it outside.

South Whitehall Fire Chief Rusty Held said Wednesday's hoverboard fire was the first the township dealt with, but he'd heard of others. There have been widespread reports that the lithium-ion batteries in Swagway have spontaneously burst into flames. Held, the fire marshal and Jack Habash took apart one of the other hoverboards so investigators could compare a working hoverboard with the burned one.

Swagway advertises its $399.99 hoverboard as an eco-friendly alternative to public transit that is "perfect for urban commutes." Hoverboards like Swagway's X1 are self-balancing, motorized scooters on which the rider stands facing forward between the two wheels.

The company does not take calls from the media, but referred all questions to a media-specific email address. An email directed to that address was unanswered Wednesday morning.

Swagway, an Indiana-based company, was criticized last week for selling their products with counterfeit safety certifications from the Illinois-based consumer group Underwriters Laboratories, or UL, according to reports in the Chicago Tribune. Swagway responded with a statement that it is using UL certified battery cells and adapters, but was notified by UL that it was using a mark signifying certification of the entire system, the newspaper reported.

Online retailer Amazon.com is issuing full refunds to hoverboard customers while QVC is no longer selling the devices, according to both companies' website. The item also is listed as out of stock on Amazon's website.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Jan. 20 that it is actively investigating 40 hoverboard-related fires in 19 states. Engineers are specifically interested in components of the lithium-ion batteries and their connection with the internal circuit boards.

Elliott Kaye, the commission chairman, said in a press release last week that there are basic safety components that prevent overheating and combustion of lithium-ion batteries in cellphones and laptops that should be present in hoverboards.

Kaye said hoverboards should not be charged near combustible items and that when charging, users should have a fire extinguisher available in an emergency.

The doorway in the Habash house where the hoverboard burned was a mess Wednesday morning as firefighters left. There were burned bits of plastic and metal and a large pile of wet, singed flour. The hover board, even the working ones, had been dumped outside.

At one point in the chaos Wednesday morning, a piece of burning debris hit Dana Habash in the neck. She brushed it off, but her husband and the fire marshal suggested she get checked out at the doctor's office.

Shortly after the fire, Jack Habash contacted his insurance company to see if his homeowners policy covers the damage. And the hoverboards are history.

"I'm getting rid of them," Jack Habash said. "I'm not going to resell them, I'm going to throw them away -- break them and throw them away."

Matt Coughlin

___

(c)2016 The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)

Visit The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) at www.mcall.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.