Residents of Seavers Hall were evacuated Friday evening after an electric scooter caught fire.
West End Fire & Rescue Co. and Shippensburg University police were dispatched to the residence hall around 9:45 p.m. for the report of a fire, an email from the university said.
When SUPD officers arrived, they found the electric scooter on fire “in a student room,” the email said. “Officers worked to extinguish the fire and were assisted by the fire department,” the email added.
Everyone was safely evacuated, and the fire department remained to ventilate smoke from the building, according to university officials.
The displaced residents were invited to shelter in the Ceddia Union Building while fire personnel worked to determine the safety of the building.
The university said that housing staff were working to relocate the students from the room where the fire occurred.
A CBS report from 2022 said that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission received at least 208 reports of fires related to electric scooters and other micromobility devices.
The fires from 2022 were responsible for 19 deaths, with 20 others being hospitalized in 39 states.
The numbers came from a letter sent to micromobility device manufacturers at the time from the CPSC, who urged the makers to “review your product line immediately and ensure that all micromobility devices that you manufacture, import distribute, or sell in the United States comply” with the agency’s standards.
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