A West Des Moines man says his e-cigarette "lit up like a Roman candle" in his pants pocket Wednesday afternoon.
West Des Moines fire crews were sent to an apartment. When they arrived, Fire Marshall Mike Whitsell says they found smoke outside the apartment and pieces of an e-cigarette outside.
The victim says he was seated on the couch inside his apartment on the cell phone when the e-cigarette he had in his pants pocket exploded. Whitsell says the man quickly took off his pants and threw the e-cigarette into the hallway of the apartment building.
The West Des Moines Fire Department is investigating to try to determine an exact cause of the fire.
However, we have found warnings about the dangers of overcharging e-cigarette apparatus causing the unit to explode on the internet. One fire department in the UK released a video of their test: