Can lithium-ion batteries catch fire?

The lithium ion battery, what makes it different than all the others is the reactivity and the sensitivity to damage. So if it's overheated, if it's punctured or damaged, if it's submerged in water, the battery has the potential to go into what we call thermal runaway. And what that basically means is it starts to generate heat, produces flammable gases and toxic gases, and then it creates a very big hazard for anyone near it. So here's an example of a lithium ion battery that was exposed to heat. And it didn't go into thermal runaway, but it definitely is damaged and is a potential hazard. Within your home, you could have obviously power tool batteries, you could have your laptops, your iPads, this is what we call an 18650. I'm gonna show you, one of our firefighters to show you a demo what happens when you damage this and put it into thermal runaway. But just imagine 20 or 30 of these in this device and an electric vehicle there could be as many as 7,000 of these. Another concern is devices that have a built-in battery that you don't replace. So again you just plug it in and you charge it and over time it doesn't work anymore. It's really important that these are disposed of properly.