In the early morning of April 7, 2023, a fire broke out in a small area in Fengtai District, Beijing, resulting in two deaths and one injury.
According to the China Judgment Document Network, the case was sentenced to four years and six months in prison after the first and second instance judgments, and the defendant Zhou committed the crime of arson. According to the judgment documents, the Fengtai District People's Court found the following facts in its judgment.
At about 22 o'clock on April 6, 2023, the defendant Zhou charged the lithium battery used in his Green Energy brand electric bicycle on the bedroom table on the north side of his home in Fengtai District, and at about 4 o'clock on April 7, the charging battery suddenly exploded and caused a fire, which produced a large amount of smoke. The 119 dispatching and command center of the Beijing Fire and Rescue Corps has dispatched 6 fire trucks and 30 fire rescue personnel to deal with it.
At 5:15, the fire was extinguished, and the fire started in the north bedroom and the corridor distribution box, and the burning materials were beds and wardrobes. After extinguishing the fire, fire and rescue personnel rescued the victims Guo (female, died at the age of 88), Huang (female, died at the age of 52), and Chen from Zhou's home and in the corridor.
According to Beijing Daily, the defendant Zhou lived on the first floor of a six-story residential building, and there was an outdoor charging carport only 10 meters away from his home. Guo X is a relative of defendant Zhou, and Huang X and Chen X are a husband and wife living on the sixth floor, and when the fire broke out, the two went downstairs to try to escape.
Guo and Huang died on the same day after rescue efforts failed, and Chen was diagnosed with inhalation injury (severe), multiple burns all over the body, carbon monoxide poisoning, metabolic acidosis combined with respiratory acidosis, etc.
According to the fire accident of the Fengtai District Fire and Rescue Detachment, the fire in this accident was caused by thermal runaway ignition of surrounding combustibles during the charging process of electric bicycle batteries.
Defendant Zhou took the initiative to ask others to report the fire after the incident, and was summoned to the case by the police of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Fengtai District Public Security Bureau at the scene, and truthfully confessed the above facts after arriving at the case.
The Fengtai District People's Court held that the defendant Zhou had a weak sense of law and fire safety, and that his negligence caused the fire that killed two people and injured one person, and that his actions constituted the crime of fire and should be punished in accordance with law. In view of the fact that the defendant Zhou X voluntarily surrendered, voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment, and obtained the forgiveness of the victim Guo's legal representative, and gave him a lighter punishment, it is therefore decided that the defendant Zhou X committed the crime of arson and was sentenced to four years and six months imprisonment.
After the first-instance verdict was announced, Zhou appealed on the grounds that the sentence was too heavy. The Beijing Municipal No. 2 Intermediate People's Court held that the judgment rendered by the court of first instance on the basis of the facts, nature, and circumstances of Zhou's crime was correctly applied, the sentence was appropriate, and the trial procedures were lawful, and should be upheld.
In the end, the court made a final ruling, rejecting the appellant Zhou's appeal and upholding the original judgment.
from recent years
Electric bicycle fire accidents
The following are the following
Causing an e-bike fire
Three main reasons
Overcharging
In general, the charging time of electric bicycles is about 8 hours, and charging for too long is easy to cause the battery to heat and expand, resulting in the explosion of the battery and causing fire accidents.
Aging lines
If the electric bicycle is used for too long, it is easy to cause aging and loosening of the connection line, resulting in leakage, poor contact or short circuit, and if the vehicle wire fails, the high temperature generated is easy to ignite the saddle and decorative plastic materials of the vehicle.
Inferior batteries
Second-hand batteries, modified batteries, and batteries that have expired in service are prone to "thermal runaway" during charging, and a large amount of toxic fumes will be generated during combustion and explosion.