Date of Request
July 23
Request
Hi,
I am doing some research for an item. I was wondering under the Freedom Of Information Act if you could tell me how many house fires or incidents have been caused by knock off phone chargers.
Not only that, but I am asking this because of a story I read that a 12-year-old in Brazil lost her life after plugging in a mobile phone into one of these Chinese knock off chargers, and she ended up being electrocuted and died with 3rd degree burns. Furthermore, I know that Brazil is going to make it law that when mobile phone manufacturers release new phones it will have to include a brand-new charger. I think it should be law in this country as well as the rest of the UK. As heaven forbid if anything like that happens to any of our children because of a knock off charger.
I hope you will be able to help me with the information.
Thanks
Response
Dear X,
Thank you for your request for incident information which has been received by Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service (the Service) and considered under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.
The Service can confirm some of the requested incident information is held, although not in as much detail as the initial request.
The Service does not have a section for phone charger or “Knock off” phone charger in our Incident Recording System. As a result free text searches were completed in the relevant sections. The dates used were are follows: 01/04/2009 – 31/05/2023. The following phrases were used as search criteria: Phone charger, Mobile charger and Plug.
These searches returned the following results:
|
Year |
Incident Type |
Main Cause |
Source of ignition |
|
2011 |
Fire |
Faulty leads to equipment or appliance |
Electricity supply – Wiring, cabling, plugs |
|
2020 |
Fire |
Faulty leads to equipment or appliance |
Electricity supply – Wiring, cabling, plugs |
|
2020 |
Fire |
Faulty fuel supply – electricity |
Electricity supply – Wiring, cabling, plugs |
|
2020 |
Fire |
Homemade phone charger |
Cut into TV power cable for make shift phone charger |
Thank you for your request for Information.
Kind regards,
Information Governance Team