A fire caused by an electric scooter has prompted officials in Leonia to consider the safety of storing these devices in apartment buildings.
On March 22, Leonia volunteer firefighters responded to 313 Woodland Place, where an e-scooter battery caught fire in a public hallway, producing “thick, acrid, dark smoke” before bursting into flames, according to Leonia Mayor Bill Ziegler.
Firefighters quickly put out the fire and evacuated the building. No one was harmed.
“My concern is, in a multiple dwelling unit, that one person’s decision to put an e-scooter and e-bike in their unit or outside in the hall can affect everybody else in the building, as we saw in Leonia,” said Ziegler.
The specific concern is not with e-scooters themselves, but with any lithium-ion battery-powered devices.
A lithium-ion battery fire can reignite long after it has been extinguished, because heat can continue to spread through the battery’s cells.
Leonia’s laws and ordinances committee is now examining the appropriate storage of lithium-ion battery-powered devices in apartment buildings and is expected to present recommendations to the borough sometime this summer.
Ziegler emphasized that a new regulation would not affect single-family homeowners.
Leonia isn’t the only town to regulate lithium-ion batteries to reduce fires.
In August 2025, Hackensack banned the sale of secondhand lithium-ion batteries, and imposed regulations specificying where lithium-ion battery powered devices, such as e-scooters and e-bikes, can be stored.
“Please avoid storing these items indoors, near sleeping areas and exits or near buildings if stored outside,” the Leonia Fire Department stated in a Facebook post on April 7.