{"id":407908,"date":"2026-09-23T04:18:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/407908\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T04:18:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:18:34","slug":"charlotte-county-batteries-plus-store-catches-fire-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/407908\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte County Batteries Plus store catches fire | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Fire crews battled a two-alarm fire at a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/dir\/\/Batteries+Plus,+1690+S+Tamiami+Trl,+Port+Charlotte,+FL+33948\/@26.5683415,-81.7488278,15z\/data=!4m8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x88dcabd1b6e87267:0x9833c76dd89c2e8c!2m2!1d-82.1370804!2d27.0093058?entry=ttu&amp;g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Batteries Plus store in Port Charlotte<\/a> on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">The fire broke out at the store located at 1690 Tamiami Trail near Cochran Boulevard. Charlotte County Fire and EMS received the call shortly after 1 p.m., around 1:10 p.m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Crews arrived within minutes and found heavy fire, thick smoke, high heat and low visibility in the back of the store, believed to be a storage area. Flames eventually vented through the roof.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">SEE ALSO: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winknews.com\/news\/lee\/fort-myers-nurse-sentenced-to-30-months-in-prison-after-no-contest-plea-in-child\/article_160e63a0-3b4c-48d6-a7c9-2b458c51886a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fort Myers nurse sentenced to 30 months in prison after no-contest plea in child neglect case<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Because of the batteries stored inside, fire officials treated the response as a hazmat situation and called additional units to the scene. Deputy Fire Chief Bryan Carr said the first attack crews had to work on cooling both the environment and the batteries before they could move farther into the building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Witnesses nearby told WINK News they watched the smoke get progressively worse before seeing flames shooting out of the roof. One witness said the flames appeared to reach as high as the nearby trees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Others said knowing the fire was inside a battery store raised concerns about possible explosions. No injuries have been reported to customers or firefighters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">The fire is under control, but crews are still working to make sure it is completely extinguished and checking for remaining hot spots. Fire investigators are on scene, but they have not yet determined the cause or confirmed whether a battery played any role in starting the fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/17i4ev9sn2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Charlotte County Sheriff&#8217;s Office said<\/a> drivers should expect traffic congestion on northbound and southbound U.S. 41 near Cochran Boulevard because of the structure fire and FPL replacing a pole nearby. Deputies urged drivers traveling through the area to use caution and expect delays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Fire crews battled a two-alarm fire at a Batteries Plus store in Port&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[162024,209,211,210,853,28,162025,38979],"class_list":["post-407908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-batteries-plus-bulbs","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte-county","tag-florida","tag-franchises","tag-wink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}