Mathew Humphrey checked his e-bike one last time before going to bed Monday night. About six hours later, his wife smelled smoke, and the Northeast Portland home the couple shared with their children and two cats was engulfed in flames. By the time the fire was out, the family had lost nearly everything inside, and both of their cats were dead.
Humphrey told KPTV that his wife woke him after detecting smoke in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and he rushed to get his children to safety. “I ran upstairs, grabbed my daughter, and wrapped her in her whole blanket,” he said. When he got downstairs, he found the garage full of smoke, with a fire burning at his workbench and chair. The fire tore through the house early Tuesday, and according to the station, it destroyed everything inside.
Firefighters had to cut into the structure to get the blaze under control. “The ceiling had to be cut away here as well as they were fighting the fire,” Humphrey said, describing the damage left behind once crews worked through the home. Portland Fire and Rescue said preliminary indications suggest lithium-ion batteries were the cause of the fire, though the station's report does not indicate that a final determination has been made.
Two Family Cats Did Not Survive
Humphrey said his children made it out of the house safely, but the family's two cats did not. Ten-year-old Leo and six-month-old Slyve both died in the fire, a loss Humphrey described starkly: his kids survived, but his cats did not. In a social media post, he wrote, “You are my sunshine. Melted memories of Tuesday.”
The night before the fire, Humphrey had been helping a friend with their electric bike, according to the same KPTV account. He said he checked the e-bike before turning in for the night, with no sign of trouble. Six hours later, flames and smoke had engulfed the home.
Insurance Gap Leaves Family Short
Humphrey said his renter's insurance coverage sits at $61,000, but early estimates suggest it will cost $150,000 to replace everything the family lost. That leaves a substantial gap between what the policy will pay out and what rebuilding a household from scratch actually costs. Humphrey has asked community members to email him directly if they want to help, providing the address [email protected].
He is also urging others to take e-bike and battery risks seriously, saying he wants neighbors to understand how quickly a charging device can turn into a house fire. The family's experience lines up with a broader trend fire officials have been tracking across the state.
A Fast-Growing Fire Risk Statewide
Oregon recorded 649 fires involving lithium-ion batteries between 2020 and 2025, with the number climbing every year, according to KPTV. Firefighters responded to 161 battery-related fires in the state in 2025 alone, more than double the count from 2020. Officials say the devices most often involved are recreational rideables — e-bikes, scooters and hoverboards among them.
Portland has seen this pattern before. Two lithium-ion battery fires broke out across the city within hours of each other in September 2024, one in Southwest Portland just before 7 a.m. and another at a Southeast Portland apartment complex just before midnight, as reported by KOIN. Together those fires displaced 11 residents. Portland Fire and Rescue attributed both to thermal runaway, a process in which an encased battery cell heats up faster than it can cool, and the agency noted it had already responded to two similar e-scooter thermal-runaway incidents in the four months beforehand.
Thermal runaway has turned deadly elsewhere this year. The New York Times reported that an e-bike battery fire in a Bronx apartment this week killed an 11-year-old boy and left four family members hospitalized in critical condition, with the blaze contained to a single 11th-floor unit. The Times noted it was the city's 401st e-bike battery fire of the year, compared with 292 such fires and one death during all of the previous year.
How to Reduce the Risk at Home
Fire officials recommend charging e-bikes, scooters and power tools outside and away from exits whenever possible, per guidance cited by KPTV. They also advise using only the charger and cord that came with a device, or one approved by its manufacturer, rather than a mismatched replacement. If a battery starts to feel very hot, swells, smokes or gives off a strange smell, officials say to stop using it immediately.
For Humphrey's family, those warnings arrived too late to prevent the damage already done. What remains now is the slow work of rebuilding a household that insurance alone will not fully cover, while grieving two pets that did not make it out.
