COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A fire broke out Tuesday morning around 5 a.m. at the Greyhound Apartments in Commerce City, sending five people to the hospital for smoke inhalation. South Adams County Fire Department confirmed the fire was started by an e-bike battery charging overnight on the fourth floor.
▶️ WATCH: Denver7's Maggy Wolanske spoke with a local bike shop owner about what to know before buying your next e-bike and how it could save your life
South Adams County Fire Chief Bob Olme said the timing made the situation especially concerning. He said the fire originated from a lithium e-bike battery that had been left charging overnight on the kitchen island.
"Fortunately, the sprinkler system held the fire. Otherwise, that time of morning, people sleeping, we believe it could have been much worse," Olme said
Residents like Riley Little were jolted awake in the early morning hours, believing it could be a false alarm.
"I woke up kind of in a panic, because I was still half asleep when the fire alarms got started going off," he said.
This is not the first time South Adams County Fire Department has responded to a call like this. Olme said they have responded to six fires caused by charging batteries in the last two months.
"Our basic tactics don't change," Olme said. "It's just making sure that we're efficient, particularly with department fires, things like that. We train every day. We're on shift to make sure that we're prepared. Crews did a great job, the training paid off, the sprinkler system paid off. This could have been much worse and we're very thankful it wasn't."
At Hardt Family Cyclery, owner Mackenzie Hardt has seen firsthand an uptick in the e-bike business.
"We had a big bike boom that was mostly an e-bike boom in the United States, especially here in Colorado, going alongside the post-Covid times, alongside all of our incentive programs that Colorado has," explained Hardt. "We are some of the first in the country to do those incentive programs with different state and local rebates, so those have helped to really increase the number of e-bikes getting out onto the road and get more people out of the car and back on their bikes."
As more and more people turn to purchasing e-bikes, Hardt warned that low-cost options could come with serious risks. Denver7 has previously covered local bike stores not repairing e-bikes that were purchased online.
"There is no way to manufacture or produce a safe battery for the prices that a lot of these companies are selling replacement batteries or what they're saying the value of the original battery is. You cannot make a $100 battery, it's not possible," Hardt said. "The only way to cut those corners is to cut safety as well."
When it comes to e-bike battery fires in Colorado, Hardt emphasized this is not new and is becoming worse.
"The most common reason for these fires is an overheating and an overcharge. It's when the battery management system either doesn't exist or is not operating properly and so the battery takes on too much charge and it starts to discharge that energy in one way or the other.," Hardt said.
In Colorado, Hardt explained there is a law in effect that regulates the battery of an e-bike.
The law, passed in 2025, mandates that lithium-ion batteries used in e-bikes "must be certified by an accredited testing laboratory for compliance with certain battery standards," among other requirements.
However, Hardt said there is a need for better consumer education and safety awareness to prevent this dangerous trend.
"We need to make sure that those folks know what our local laws are," said Hardt. "We need to make sure that they understand from a driving perspective what the e-bike laws are, what the bicycle laws are, but also what the consumer's responsibility is around the products they buy and where they store those."
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