OnePlus One catches fire, company says it’s ‘looking into matter’

As per the email, which was shared as a screenshot on Twitter, the OnePlus One smartphone suddenly caught fire at around 3:15 AM on July 3. The user said that the room’s air conditioner was set at 19 degrees and they woke up because of the smell of the burning smartphone and noticed fumes in the room.

The email adds that he quickly took some water to douse the fumes, which in his view prevented the phone from exploding and causing any serious damage or injury. The smartphone was kept around a feet away from him.

Someone I know just got saved from fatality. @OnePlus_IN @oneplus how do you explain your phone exploding out of the blue???! Kids use your phone as it’s attractively priced. Where is the responsibility to fix this? pic.twitter.com/CRgmF6RTBB

— Chaiti Narula (@Chaiti) July 3, 2019

In his  email, he admits that smartphone is more than five years old, but says the device must not pose a threat to the user. He held both OnePlus and Amazon India – the seller responsible for this. Chaiti in her tweet has also added that sometimes kids uses these phones given it is attractively priced.

While the phone is five years old, OnePlus had responded to the concerns. A member of the OnePlus Support team tweeted saying they were working to resolve the issue. Check out the tweet from OnePlus below.

We are sorry about the delay in responding here. We see that our Critical escalations Team has already reached out to the Customer and are working hard to resolve the issue in the best possible way. Hope this helps.

— OnePlus Support (@OnePlus_Support) July 4, 2019

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Smartphones catching on fire is not something new, though till date there have been no reports of a OnePlus phone on fire. There are various reasons why phones can catch fire and damaged or outdated batteries are often the number one reason. Using unauthorised chargers can also damage the battery over a period of time and poses a hazard risk.

In this case the OnePlus One in question is five years old, and there could have been some damage to the battery that caused it to suddenly catch fire.  However, as the user did mention, the phone was switched off, so it is surprising it caught fire while off. Ideally one should get rid of their old and overused gadgets, or at least have the battery checked and replaced because it can pose problems.