A fire did serious damage to a single-family home on the west side of Hollister, and the reported culprit was a so-called “hoverboard”—a product category facing widespread recalls due to similar safety issues.
The fire was reported at 11:11 a.m. Saturday at a home on Robert Drive at Jacqueline Drive, just west of Westside Boulevard. Fire crews arrived on scene six minutes later, Chief Bob Martin Del Campo told the Free Lance on Monday. Four people were displaced by the blaze, he said.
The chief confirmed that dispatchers relayed reports that the fire’s cause was a hoverboard, a product category manufactured by a range of companies. The battery-powered devices typically include two wheels and a slim platform on which riders stand and control their movements.
Overheated batteries on the hoverboards have led to a half-million recalls, according to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal. Doing a Google News search of “hoverboard fire” turns up various stories from across the nation about fires caused by the products.
The point of origin was carpet in the bedroom, close to where the hoverboard was reported as being in use, Del Campo said. Investigators know the point of origin, but are continuing the investigation on other aspects of the fire such as the cause, the chief said.
“The point of origin actually was in a bedroom,” he said. “One of the kids had foresight to close the bedroom door once they saw the smoke.”
That initially contained the fire to the one bedroom, though the damage did extend from there along with widespread smoke damage, he said.
The chief said firefighters had the fire out in about 12 minutes, but it destroyed about half of the building.
A bit more than two hours after that incident, local firefighters responded to a wildfire in the Panoche area in south San Benito County. Calfire and various local departments were involved, while the drive for the Hollister crews took about an hour alone, the chief said.
The fire was New Idria and Panoche roads and south of Mercy Hot Springs, according to a Calfire information page. The fire grew to 95 acres before it was contained.
