Hello,

Could one of our fellow EE's (or anyone that knows with a "high degree of certainty") comment on the paragraph below and issue a response in plain english what we as investigators should be looking for when working a fire scene with a laptop and possibly a Sony battery in the area of origin? Does the laptop need to be on, or charging for the failure to occur?

"As we have previously explained, on rare occasions, microscopic metal particles in the recalled battery cells may come into contact with other parts of the battery cell, leading to a possibility of short circuit within the cell. Typically, a battery pack will simply power off when a cell short circuit occurs. However, under certain rare conditions an internal short circuit may lead to cell overheating and potentially flames. The potential for this to occur can be affected by variations in the system configurations found in different notebook computers." Source for this was from a search. There's a lot out there on the battery/fire concerns and not just from Dell.

Thanks!

Ted J. Pagels, CFEI
FIREPROSe, LLC
Green Bay, WI

Ted J. Pagels, NAFI/CFEI, IAAI/CFI
Senior Fire Investigator
FIREPROSe, LLC
Green Bay, WI
firepros@aol.com