Four die in apartment block e-scooter fire
Credit: X/@LevyGuillaume, @nexta_tv
Four people have died in a fire started by an electric scooter in an apartment block in France.
Authorities described the fire that tore through the 10-storey housing block in Reims, 80 miles north-east of Paris, as 'extremely violent' and akin to a 'scene of war'.
The blaze was so fierce that it took dozens of firefighters several hours to bring under control.
The victims were two teenage boys who lived with their family in the fourth-floor flat where the scooter was being stored, and an elderly woman and her son who lived on the top floor.
The fire broke out shortly after midnight on Friday morning. The cause is believed to be an electric scooter that was being stored between a freezer and a washing machine.
One of the residents of the flat was a 13-year-old boy, who died when he jumped from the window to escape the fire. The charred remains of his 15-year-old brother were found in the flat.
The boys' stepfather survived but suffered serious burns.
On the top floor, an 87-year-old woman and her 59-year-old son died from smoke inhalation.
'The first responders described a scene of war, literally, as the building's residents were fleeing the scene in disarray,' said François Schneider, the Reims public prosecutor, on Saturday.
Lithium batteries that power e-scooters can catch fire if they have been improperly manufactured, overheat or are damaged.
It took 62 firefighters more than three hours to extinguish the blaze, said Mr Schneider.
'Fires caused by this type of battery…are extremely difficult to extinguish, since the cells tend to self-sustain when they burn, which explains the violence and speed with which the fire spreads,' he added.
One resident of the block, named only as Faïza, told a local radio station she and her family narrowly escaped after hearing screams and seeing smoke everywhere. She said they had to leave everything behind as they fled.
'The flames took over the building so quickly, we didn't have time. We went downstairs and went straight out with the children,' she said.
Faiza said she was friends with the mother of the two boys who died, who was away on a visit to French Guiana with her newborn baby girl.
She added that she had seen the body of the boy who jumped lying on the ground.
'His feet were broken. He was burned,' she said.
'His eyes were closed. I could see that he no longer felt the pain. You could see that he was no longer there. He wasn't moving, he wasn't speaking, his eyes were closed.'
Since January, battery-powered electric scooters have caused at least 50 fires across France.
The number of related fires has increased sixfold in France between 2017-2024, according to French insurer Maif.
Fire safety experts remind users to follow manufacturer guidelines and to never overcharge devices, nor to charge them unattended while sleeping or away from home.
Batteries should also be charged far from heat sources and emergency exits. Batteries showing signs of swelling, leaking, or any other defects should be replaced immediately.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Four die in apartment block e-scooter fire
Credit: X/@LevyGuillaume, @nexta_tv Four people have died in a fire started by an electric scooter in an apartment block in France. Authorities described the fire that tore through the 10-storey housing block in Reims, 80 miles north-east of Paris, as 'extremely violent' and akin to a 'scene of war'. The blaze was so fierce that it took dozens of firefighters several hours to bring under control. The victims were two teenage boys who lived with their family in the fourth-floor flat where the scooter was being stored, and an elderly woman and her son who lived on the top floor. The fire broke out shortly after midnight on Friday morning. The cause is believed to be an electric scooter that was being stored between a freezer and a washing machine. One of the residents of the flat was a 13-year-old boy, who died when he jumped from the window to escape the fire. The charred remains of his 15-year-old brother were found in the flat. The boys' stepfather survived but suffered serious burns. On the top floor, an 87-year-old woman and her 59-year-old son died from smoke inhalation. 'The first responders described a scene of war, literally, as the building's residents were fleeing the scene in disarray,' said François Schneider, the Reims public prosecutor, on Saturday. Lithium batteries that power e-scooters can catch fire if they have been improperly manufactured, overheat or are damaged. It took 62 firefighters more than three hours to extinguish the blaze, said Mr Schneider. 'Fires caused by this type of battery…are extremely difficult to extinguish, since the cells tend to self-sustain when they burn, which explains the violence and speed with which the fire spreads,' he added. One resident of the block, named only as Faïza, told a local radio station she and her family narrowly escaped after hearing screams and seeing smoke everywhere. She said they had to leave everything behind as they fled. 'The flames took over the building so quickly, we didn't have time. We went downstairs and went straight out with the children,' she said. Faiza said she was friends with the mother of the two boys who died, who was away on a visit to French Guiana with her newborn baby girl. She added that she had seen the body of the boy who jumped lying on the ground. 'His feet were broken. He was burned,' she said. 'His eyes were closed. I could see that he no longer felt the pain. You could see that he was no longer there. He wasn't moving, he wasn't speaking, his eyes were closed.' Since January, battery-powered electric scooters have caused at least 50 fires across France. The number of related fires has increased sixfold in France between 2017-2024, according to French insurer Maif. Fire safety experts remind users to follow manufacturer guidelines and to never overcharge devices, nor to charge them unattended while sleeping or away from home. Batteries should also be charged far from heat sources and emergency exits. Batteries showing signs of swelling, leaking, or any other defects should be replaced immediately. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
CNBC
a day ago
- CNBC
'Bitcoin Family' hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings
A wave of high-profile kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency executives has rattled the industry — and prompted a quiet security revolution among some of its most visible evangelists. Didi Taihuttu, patriarch of the so-called "Bitcoin Family," said he overhauled the family's entire security setup after a string of threats. The Taihuttus — who sold everything they owned in 2017, from their house to their shoes, to go all-in on bitcoin when it was trading around $900 — have long lived on the outer edge of crypto ideology. They travel full-time with their three daughters and remain entirely unbanked. Over the past eight months, he said, the family ditched hardware wallets in favor of a hybrid system: Part analog, part digital, with seed phrases encrypted, split, and stored either through blockchain-based encryption services or hidden across four continents. "We have changed everything," Taihuttu told CNBC on a call from Phuket, Thailand. "Even if someone held me at gunpoint, I can't give them more than what's on my wallet on my phone. And that's not a lot." CNBC first reported on the family's unconventional storage system in 2022, when Taihuttu described hiding hardware wallets across multiple continents — in places ranging from rental apartments in Europe to self-storage units in South America. As physical attacks on crypto holders become more frequent, even they are rethinking their exposure. This week, Moroccan police arrested a 24-year-old suspected of orchestrating a series of brutal kidnappings targeting crypto executives. One victim, the father of a crypto millionaire, was allegedly held for days in a house south of Paris — and reportedly had a finger severed during the ordeal. In a separate case earlier this year, a co-founder of French wallet firm Ledger and his wife were abducted from their home in central France in a ransom scheme that also targeted another Ledger executive. Last month in New York, authorities said, a 28-year-old Italian tourist was kidnapped and tortured for 17 days in a Manhattan apartment by attackers trying to extract his bitcoin password — shocking him with wires, beating him with a gun, and strapping an Apple AirTag around his neck to track his movements. The common thread: The pursuit of crypto credentials that enable instant, irreversible transfers of virtual assets. "It is definitely frightening to see a lot of these kidnappings happen," said JP Richardson, CEO of crypto wallet company Exodus. He urged users to take security into their own hands by choosing self-custody, storing larger sums on hardware wallets, and — for those holding significant assets — exploring multi-signature wallets, a setup typically used by institutions. Richardson also recommended spreading funds across different wallet types and avoiding large balances in hot wallets to reduce risk without sacrificing flexibility. That rising sense of vulnerability is fueling a new demand for physical protection with insurance firms now racing to offer kidnap and ransom (K&R) policies tailored to crypto holders. But Taihuttu isn't waiting for corporate solutions. He's opted for complete decentralization — of not just his finances, but his personal risk profile. As the family prepares to return to Europe from Thailand, safety has become a constant topic of conversation. "We've been talking about it a lot as a family," Taihuttu said. "My kids read the news, too — especially that story in France, where the daughter of a CEO was almost kidnapped on the street." Now, he said, his daughters are asking difficult questions: What if someone tries to kidnap us? What's the plan? Though the girls carry only small amounts of crypto in their personal wallets, the family has decided to avoid France entirely. "We got a little bit famous in a niche market — but that niche is becoming a really big market now," Taihuttu said. "And I think we'll see more and more of these robberies. So yeah, we're definitely going to skip France." Even in Thailand, Taihuttu recently stopped posting travel updates and filming at home after receiving disturbing messages from strangers who claimed to have identified his location from YouTube vlogs. "We stayed in a very beautiful house for six months — then I started getting emails from people who figured out which house it was. They warned me to be careful, told me not to leave my kids alone," he said. "So we moved. And now we don't film anything at all." "It's a strange world at the moment," he said. "So we're taking our own precautions — and when it comes to wallets, we're now completely hardware wallet-less. We don't use any hardware wallets anymore." The family's new system involves splitting a single 24-word bitcoin seed phrase — the cryptographic key that unlocks access to their crypto holdings — into four sets of six words, each stored in a different geographic location. Some are kept digitally through blockchain-based encryption platforms, while others are etched by hand into fireproof steel plates using a hammer and letter punch, then hidden in physical locations across four continents. "Even if someone finds 18 of the 24 words, they can't do anything," Taihuttu explained. On top of that, he's added a layer of personal encryption, swapping out select words to throw off would-be attackers. The method is simple, but effective. "You only need to remember which ones you changed," he said. Part of the reason for ditching hardware wallets, Taihuttu said, was a growing mistrust of third-party devices. Concerns about backdoors and remote access features — including a controversial update by Ledger in 2023 — prompted the family to abandon physical hardware altogether in favor of encrypted paper and steel backups. While the family still holds some crypto in "hot" wallets — for daily spending or to run their algorithmic trading strategy — those funds are protected by multi-signature approvals, which require multiple parties to sign off before a transaction can be executed. The Taihuttus use Safe — formerly Gnosis Safe — for ether and other altcoins, and similarly layered setups for bitcoin stored on centralized platforms like Bybit. About 65% of the family's crypto is locked in cold storage across four continents — a decentralized system Taihuttu prefers to centralized vaults like the Swiss Alps bunker used by Coinbase-owned Xapo. Those facilities may offer physical protection and inheritance services, but Taihuttu said they require too much trust. "What happens if one of those companies goes bankrupt? Will I still have access?" he said. "You're putting your capital back in someone else's hands." Instead, Taihuttu holds his own keys — hidden across the globe. He can top up the wallets remotely with new deposits, but accessing them would require at least one international trip, depending on which fragments of the seed phrase are needed. The funds, he added, are intended as a long-term pension to be accessed only if bitcoin hits $1 million — a milestone he's targeting for 2033. The shift toward multiparty protections extends beyond just multi-signature. Multi-party computation, or MPC, is gaining traction as a more advanced security model. Instead of storing private keys in one place — a vulnerability known as a "single point of compromise" — MPC splits a key into encrypted shares distributed across multiple parties. Transactions can only go through when a threshold number of those parties approve, sharply reducing the risk of theft or unauthorized access. Multi-signature wallets require several parties to approve a transaction. MPC takes that further by cryptographically splitting the private key itself, ensuring that no single individual ever holds the full key — not even their own complete share. The shift comes amid renewed scrutiny of centralized crypto platforms like Coinbase, which recently disclosed a data breach affecting tens of thousands of customers. Taihuttu, for his part, says 80% of his trading now happens on decentralized exchanges like Apex — a peer-to-peer platform that allows users to set buy and sell orders without relinquishing custody of their funds, marking a return to crypto's original ethos. While he declined to reveal his total holdings, Taihuttu did share his goal for the current bull cycle: a $100 million net worth, with 60% still held in bitcoin. The rest is a mix of ether, layer-1 tokens like solana, link, sui, and a growing number of AI and education-focused startups — including his own platform offering blockchain and life-skills courses for kids. Lately, he's also considering stepping back from the spotlight. "It's really my passion to create content. It's really what I love to do every day," he said. "But if it's not safe anymore for my daughters ... I really need to think about them."
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
An electric scooter is blamed for a violent fire that killed 4 in northeastern France
PARIS (AP) — Four people were killed in an 'extremely violent' blaze — seemingly caused by a battery-powered electric scooter — that tore through a 10-story housing block in northeast France, authorities said Saturday. A 13-year-old jumped to his death from the 4th-floor apartment in Reims where the fire started in the early hours of Friday and a burned body found inside is believed to be that of his older brother, aged 15, said prosecutor François Schneider. An 87-year-old woman and her 59-year-old son who lived on the 8th floor suffocated to death in the smoke, he said. Two people were seriously injured, including the dead boys' stepfather who was badly burned, and 26 others were treated in hospital for lighter injuries, he said. Schneider said there is 'no doubt' that the blaze was accidental, spreading quickly from the scooter that caught fire for reasons unknown. Battery fires 'are extremely difficult to extinguish' and fire officers battled the blaze for more than three hours, the prosecutor said.
