On August 23, around 11:00 in the morning, a small group of houndsmen hiked 800 yards (roughly half a mile) through thick woods to where their dogs had chased a large bear into a tree. When they got there, the bear was only about ten feet off the ground. It was nervous to begin with, but when it saw the humans, it had had enough. The bear leapt out of the tree, rolled over the dogs, and took off over a fallen pine tree.
The dogs cornered it there for a few seconds before chasing it back into the woods, and in all the chaos a strange smoke shot off behind them. “What was that?!” Someone screamed. “Did you see those flames?!” At first glance, it looked like a flare had gone off, or maybe some mushrooms had gotten crushed and released a cloud of spores. It wasn’t until the smell hit them that they realized what it was: a lithium ion battery on fire.
The smell of burning plastic and battery acid led the way as well as any GPS could, until finally they reached the dogs again. Miraculously, little one year old Artax came running to greet them, unharmed, aside from a little singed fur on his neck.
They ripped the still-warm TT15 (Garmin) collar off of him before it could ignite again, and found bear-sized bite marks on the battery unit. This wasn’t very alarming in and of itself (as some dogs’ collars actually get bitten quite often), but it was the gaping melted holes on the top and front of the unit that scared them. If the fire had come out in any other direction, the dog could have gotten seriously injured, or worse. A dog’s tracking collar is supposed to keep it safe. Houndsmen rely on these collars to keep their dogs from running into the road, prevent them from chasing something they shouldn’t, and even taking the brunt of bites from large prey.
Batteries are the future, there is no doubting that, but battery safety education and risk mitigation should be a commercial priority.
