Canberra Store Evacuated After An iPad Bursts Into Flames

An iPad allegedly exploded at a Vodafone store in Canberra on Friday, prompting an emergency evacuation of the building.

According to the Daily Mail, a demo unit of Apple’s latest tablet started producing sparks and smoke, forcing the management to call out the fire brigade. However, a later report from Mashable clarified that the tablet in question was an older model, most likely a third- or fourth-generation iPad, and not an  iPad Air.

No one was injured in the incident. Apple had not issued a comment at the time of publication.

Light ‘em up

Staff employed by Vodafone at the store in the Australian capital said flames appeared near the charging port of the device, filling the building with smoke.

After the fire went out, the device was collected by an Apple representative for analysis.

This is not the first time Apple products have been alleged to have spontaneously combusted. Way back in 2009, an iPod Touch belonging to an 11 year old girl from Liverpool apparently “exploded”, following a similar case in the US. Later, several users in Europe reported that their iPhones were heating up until they burst into flames. The threat of self-destructing devices concerned the French government so much it held a special meeting with the company representatives.

In 2011, an iPhone 4 allegedly self-combusted on board an Australian flight after it safely landed in Sydney. And in 2012, Finnish news site Kauppalehti reported that a teenager’s phone started emitting white smoke while in his pocket, with the whole incident caught on video.

Earlier this year, a 23-year-old Chinese woman was reportedly electrocuted while charging her iPhone 5, prompting Apple to launch an investigation and eventually offer a limited time charger exchange programme to swap[ out unsafe third-party chargers.

And Apple is by no means the only device manufacturer faced with such problems – there have been exploding BlackBerries and a self-immolating Samsung Galaxy S III, which, it later turned out, was actually cooked in a microwave oven after it got wet.

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