Firefighters say they fear being ‘“overwhelmed” by increasing numbers of battery fires, after the death of a Sydney man in a house fire on Saturday night was linked to toxic smoke from burning lithium batteries.
The 54-year-old man was eating downstairs in his Punchbowl unit in Sydney’s west with two women when the fire broke out. He tried to extinguish the blaze with a fire extinguisher, but when firefighters arrived he was found unconscious on his bathroom floor with soot on his mouth, having inhaled toxic smoke.
