A middle school student in Kennebunk, Maine received second-degree burns after an iPhone 5C in her pocket caught fire. The event hospitalized her, albeit briefly; she received care and was then released from hospital just 45 minutes later.
The handset was in the student's back pocket, and when she sat down in her first class of the day, the phone made a ‘popping’ noise. Fire officials who spoke to USA Today say they think the phone “shorted out” due to the pressure of being sat on.
The school’s principal told Portland Press Herald that the phone initially started to cause smoke around the student. In panic she dropped to the ground and began to roll to try and extinguish the fire. The phone then fell from her pocket whilst still smoldering.
This is an unusual occurrence for Apple handsets and seems to be one of the few that hasn’t been caused by poor third-party accessories (like chargers) and unauthorized repairs that often use unofficial replica parts.
