CROWN HEIGHTS — A new motorized hoverboard started smoking and burst into flames as its owner charged it inside an apartment just days after Christmas, FDNY officials said.
Officials said a resident of the Kingsborough Houses in Crown Heights had been charging the new self-balancing scooter inside a sixth-floor apartment when it began smoking shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday.
The resident quickly moved the hoverboard into the hallway outside the apartment — and moments later, it burst into flames, officials said.
The FDNY responded to the building at 553 Kingsborough 5th Walk at the corner of Bergen Street and Buffalo Avenue and quickly put out the flames.
No one was injured in the incident, but the motorized toy was completely incinerated, they said.
The fire department tweeted a photo of the scooter on Wednesday with the hashtag #hoverboardfire.
#FDNY extinguished #hoverboardfire yesterday in #Brooklyn apartment, preventing injuries pic.twitter.com/0RZdm5JtUx
— FDNY (@FDNY) December 30, 2015On Wednesday, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro warned the public about hoverboards — which are technically illegal, but showed up in lots of home as Christmas gifts this year — by saying he’d personally steer clear of the popular gadgets.
"We could have had a tragedy," Nigro told reporters in Brooklyn, as reported by NBC New York. "I wouldn't plug one in in my home."
The city and elected officials have been at odds over how to handle the growing hoverboard presence, with some politicians looking to allow the boards to be registered as a way to regulate them, as other city officials warn New Yorkers to steer clear.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, too, thinks hoverboards are a danger. Hours before the Crown Heights fire on Tuesday, he said anyone who rides one in the city is “out of their mind.”
