HONOLULU (KHON2) — A trash fire on the morning of March 31 caused by a common household item prompts a message from officials to properly dispose lithium-ion batteries to prevent a potentially dangerous situation.
Gray smoke billowed from a large pile of trash as firefighters tried to put it out along Heeia Street in Kaneohe.
The Honolulu Fire Department confirmed they responded to the incident after a refuse truck driver saw smoke coming from his load and dumped it. Roger Babcock, director of the Department of Environmental Services, said it’s been taken care of.
“All cleaned up now, and we have the material that we think started the fire,” Babcock said. “We’re trying to figure out what it is. It’s something, some sort of lithium-ion device, that we’re not familiar with.”
The item, however, was not recognizable to Babcock’s team.
“It’s kind of a large battery pack, and we’re not we’re not sure what it is, but it’s definitely lithium-ion,” Babcock said.
HFD fire inspector Thomas Inouye said fires from those batteries can be very difficult to put out.
“The smoke that it produces is actually very toxic,” Inouye explained.
According to Babcock, refuse collection vehicles rarely have to dump their loads due to fires. But he said they deal with fires at the H-POWER disposal site regularly.
Babcock said in 2024, they had 158 fires at H-POWER, 44 of them from lithium-ion batteries.
“Fires starting in the pit where everything is dumped. And that’s the chance, a time when stuff is mixed together and being pushed around, and fires can get can get started,” he said. “So those are much more common. Those are happening every week.”
He said they are equipped to deal with those fires but they can be volatile, and it only takes one.
“If we were to really have a a catastrophic fire, that would be really bad. It could burn down a facility,” Babcock explained. “We had one about two years ago, which took out part of H-POWER for a couple of weeks because there was repairs that needed to be made, and some conveyor belts melted.”
That’s why prevention is key. He’s urging everyone to dispose of them correctly.
“The proper way is to take them to one of our convenience centers,” Babcock explained.
These centers can collect and recycle them preventing potentially dangerous situations.
Some common items with lithium-ion batteries include cellphones, digital cameras, laptops and tablets.
Convenience Centers are open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. They are only closed Christmas and New Year’s Day.