Last week a Canadian teenager suffered third-degree burns after his charging iPhone caught on fire while he was sleeping.
According to a report from Canada's Global News, the teen plugged in the phone and placed it on his night stand before turning in for the night, but woke up just a few hours later to find his bed and leg on fire. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation but the teen's family believes a third-party charger purchased at a local gas station is to blame.
The teen's father Rob Schultz said he was woken up at around midnight on Sunday to the sound of his teenage son screaming.
"We ran to see what was going on and his bed was on fire really bad and some of the furniture there too," Schultz told the news outlet. The family made it out of the house and no one else was injured, but the teen suffered third-degree burns on his right leg and hands. All that remains of the phone is a charred brick.
"He's scared still," Schultz said. "That was a scary thing for all of us. I never expected to see what I saw when I turned the corner and looked into that room."
The risk of third-party chargers has been widely documented. Two years ago Apple launched a worldwide USB power adapter trade-in program so that people could trade in third-party and counterfeit chargers for authorized ones after a Chinese woman was reportedly killed by electric shock while answering a call on her iPhone 5 while it was plugged into an unofficial charger.
"Recent reports have suggested that some counterfeit and third-party adapters may not be designed properly and could result in safety issues," Apple said at the time, adding that not all third party adapters have this issue.