What you need to know
- An Apple Store fire caused a shopping mall to be evacuated on Tuesday.
- Fire crews were called to Apple Braehead in Glasgow because of a smoking battery.
A fire at an Apple store in Glasgow caused the Braehead shopping mall to be evacuated on Tuesday.
Shoppers were evacuated from the Western end of the Braehead Shopping Centre on Tuesday at around 4:20 pm local time. A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson told iMore:
"We were alerted at 4.22pm on Tuesday, February 8 to reports of fire affecting retail premises at Braehead Shopping Centre, Glasgow."Operations control immediately mobilised four fire engines to the location and firefighters extinguished the fire."Crews left the scene at 4.53pm after ensuring the area was made safe."
The alert was caused by a smoking battery, likely from a repair device that had come through the store's Genius Bar.
Instances of inflated or ruptured batteries are not uncommon at Apple stores and often come across the Genius Bar for repair. Apple store staff on both the Genius Bar and its Operations team are trained in procedures to handle swollen or potentially dangerous batteries to avoid such incidents, for example, some stores use a "battery safe" to contain potentially dangerous or volatile units.
Apple's Braehead store is one of two stores the company operates in Glasgow and one of four Scotland stores. The Braehead store is open today for its normal working hours despite yesterday's incident.
