Surfer finds his car destroyed after iPhone 7 caught fire

Oct 21, 2016 08:10 GMT  ·  By

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 saga is living proof that smartphones are no longer entirely safe to use these days no matter the brand, and a recent case involving Apple’s brand-new iPhone 7 shows that pretty much any company can be hit by similar issues.

The iPhone 7 of south coast surfer Mat Jones burst into flames in his car and set the vehicle on fire, damaging the interior and burning down the front seats and the center console.

A report from Yahoo News reveals that the man parked the car near the beach and left the iPhone 7, which he had bought only 7 days before, inside, covered by his clothes. It’s not clear if the phone was plugged in, but given the fact that the car was locked, there’s a good chance it wasn’t.

It wasn’t until he returned to the car that he observed it was all filled with smoke, and when opening the door, he noticed that the phone, the clothes covering it, and the front seats were all burning.

The aftermath of the fire is not at all nice, and you can see in the picture at the end of the article what the car’s interior looks like right now.

Apple already investigating

As for the causes of the fire, it’s not exactly clear what led to the iPhone bursting into flames, and the owner says that the device was only 7 days old and never received any powerful hit or shock. He didn’t drop the iPhone either, and it was in mint condition before catching fire.

Overheating is most certainly to blame for the iPhone catching fire, but Apple says that it indeed heard about this case and is already investigating, so more details could be provided at a later time - this is very unlikely, though, given Apple’s strategy regarding this kind of cases.

What’s more important, however, is that the owner says the iPhone was covered by his clothes, which means that there’s only a very small chance of the phone getting hot because of direct sunlight.

This, in return, means that the iPhone 7 overheated without being plugged in and without an external source of heat, so Apple certainly needs to investigate this because more owners could be afraid of widespread issues that could cause their iPhones to catch fire as well.

And this is the car interior after the iPhone burst into flames
And this is the car interior after the iPhone burst into flames

Photo Gallery (2 Images)

This is what the iPhone looks like after the fire
And this is the car interior after the iPhone burst into flames
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