PowerBook fire may be tied to earlier battery recall

Jordan Golson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:58:27 -0500

There hasn't been a large-scale notebook battery recall since November, but an incident in Britain illustrates the importance of switching out batteries subject to earlier warnings.

An older-model PowerBook burst into flames at a London marketing company on Wednesday, according to the Inquirer. The notebook, a 15" PowerBook G4, may have been included in a battery recall that Apple participated in after some Sony batteries were found to have overheated in certain circumstances.

The notebook in question began to smolder with smoke coming from the machine and soon after "basically exploded," said an IT manager interviewed by the British tech tabloid. "Flames were flying six foot in the air, and sparks."

"There was a popping sound and more smoke," Steven said. "I hit the fire alarm." After emptying a fire extinguisher on the machine, the PowerBook was "still hot and glowing and the battery was all molten inside and glowing red."

"We decided to wait for the fire brigade to turn up."

PowerBooks with bad batteries have exploded before, though we've never gotten quite so many impressive pictures. Either way, if you've got an older PowerBook it's probably a good idea to double-check your serial number against the recall list published by Apple.

When I wrote last month that the Apple notebook market was exploding, this isn't quite what I had in mind. No word if the user in question had their data backed up with Time Machine.