There Could Be A Fire Hazard Hiding in Your Junk Drawer

We all have that drawer in our homes that we throw miscellaneous, well, junk into. You may want to pay more attention into what's going in there-- It could save your life.

Many fire departments around our area reminded people that Daylight Saving Time this past weekend is a good time to change the 9-volt battery in your smoke detector.

It turns out though that just chucking 9-volt batteries into a drawer and forgetting it is there could lead to a massive house fire.

News 5 Cleveland explored this issue in the video below:

The reporter in the video spoke with a man who's home burst into flames. How did the fire start?

All the man did was change the 9-volt battery in a smoke detector, throw the battery into a paper bag, and left the bag in the drawer. Soon after, the batteries combusted, and his home caught fire.

News 5 Cleveland looked into several other cases of this occurring, including one at a home in New Hampshire, where the batteries sparked a fire after being thrown into a junk drawer in the kitchen.

Going a step further, the news crew did a few tests. First they measured how much the temperature of a coin increased after the coin sat on a battery's terminals. In just a matter of minutes, the coin's temperature jump from around 70 degrees to more than 150 -- more than double.

Additionally, the crew threw a 9-volt battery into a drawer with household kitchen items, like steel wool, car keys, coffee filters. After opening and closing the drawer a few times, the steel wool started on fire after getting in contact with the steel wool.

So how you you circumvent this death sentence of a battery? Pretty easily, actually. All you have to do is either place a battery cap back on the 9-volt, or place a piece of electrical tape over the terminals of the battery.

So if you haven't already, If I were you, I would go to that drawer you are keeping the battery in, and get some electrical tape on there.