Fire Prevention Week 2026 Focuses on Lithium-Ion Battery Charging Safety

With Fire Prevention Week set for Oct. 4–10, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is putting lithium-ion battery charging habits at the center of its national campaign for the second year running. This year’s theme, “Charge into Fire Safety: Safe Charging Is a Superpower,” targets the everyday devices — phones, laptops, power tools, e-bikes, and scooters — whose batteries have become an increasingly common home fire cause.

What the campaign covers

NFPA’s guidance for Fire Prevention Week 2026 focuses on a handful of concrete habits rather than abstract warnings:

• Use manufacturer-approved chargers and cords. Incompatible or aftermarket charging equipment can damage a battery in ways that aren’t visible from the outside, increasing fire risk.
• Charge on hard, flat surfaces — a table or desk, not a bed, couch, or anywhere heat can get trapped against soft material.
• Unplug once charged. Leaving a device on the charger after it’s full adds unnecessary heat buildup over time.
• Watch for warning signs — unusual heat, swelling, smoke, or an odd smell from a battery or device, all of which call for immediate removal from the home if it can be done safely.

NFPA’s Fire Prevention Week resource center provides printable and digital materials that local fire departments can use for community outreach during the observance week.

Why lithium-ion batteries specifically

The device category covered by this theme — small rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in consumer electronics, power tools, and micromobility devices like e-bikes and scooters — has drawn increasing national attention from fire agencies in recent years as adoption of these devices has grown. Unlike many traditional home fire causes, lithium-ion battery failures can escalate very quickly once thermal runaway begins, and produce dense, toxic smoke, which is part of why NFPA and the U.S. Fire Administration both advise evacuating immediately rather than attempting to fight a battery fire with water.

How this fits the broader fire-death picture

NFPA’s most recent Home Structure Fires research, covering 2019–2023, found that fire departments responded to an estimated 328,590 home structure fires per year on average, causing about 2,600 civilian deaths and $8.9 billion in direct property damage annually. Cooking, heating equipment, and electrical distribution and lighting equipment remain the leading overall causes of home fires in that dataset. NFPA has now dedicated a second consecutive Fire Prevention Week to lithium-ion batteries, a newer hazard tied to the growing number of rechargeable devices in homes.

What households can do now, ahead of Oct. 4

Fire Prevention Week is timed to the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, and departments nationwide use the week for open houses, school visits, and smoke alarm checks in addition to the year’s specific theme. Ahead of this year’s observance, households with e-bikes, scooters, or other lithium-ion-powered devices can start now: check that chargers match the original manufacturer’s specifications, avoid charging devices overnight or unattended, and keep charging stations away from exits so a battery fire doesn’t block an escape route.

Where to learn more

NFPA’s Fire Prevention Week site has the full library of safe-charging materials for Oct. 4–10. FireVerge’s causes section tracks how home fire causes — including emerging ones like battery fires — compare across states, and our about/methodology page explains how we source and calculate structure-fire statistics from NFIRS data.