A jump starter linked to 16 fires is too dangerous to keep using, CPSC says

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is telling consumers to stop using Hererod jump starters and power banks immediately, citing 16 reports of fire tied to the battery-powered devices. The agency’s September 17, 2026, warning covers roughly 12,500 units sold under two model numbers, PW40 and EW40, through Amazon.com, CarKart.com and eBay.com. Seven of the 16 fires caused property damage, and CPSC says the units’ lithium-ion batteries can explode and ignite without warning.

CPSC says the Hererod-branded devices reached consumers between August 2024 and August 2026. The PW40 doubles as a tire inflator and carries its model number on the front of the housing; the EW40 skips the inflation feature and, unlike its sibling, has no model number printed anywhere on the unit, a detail that makes it harder for an owner without the original box to know whether the device is one of the roughly 12,500 covered by the warning.

A manufacturer that has gone silent

The devices are made by Qianjiang Simiaole Network Technology Co., Ltd., a manufacturer based in China. According to the CPSC’s warning, the company “has been unresponsive to CPSC requests for a recall or information about this product,” leaving the agency to act on its own. That is a meaningful distinction: this is a unilateral safety warning rather than a negotiated recall, so there is no company-run refund, replacement or repair program for the units already sold.

Attorneys tracking the case describe a similar pattern. A summary from product-liability firm Johnson Becker notes that the EW40’s missing model marking has complicated efforts to identify affected units, since owners who did not keep their original packaging or receipt have no simple way to confirm the designation on their own.

Why lithium-ion batteries turn dangerous

CPSC’s own explanation is blunt: “The internal lithium-ion batteries can explode and ignite, posing risks of serious injury and death due to fire.” The federal agency that regulates how these batteries move through commerce, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, describes the underlying mechanism in more detail. Most lithium batteries “contain a flammable electrolyte and have an incredibly high energy density,” PHMSA explains, and a short circuit, physical damage or a manufacturing defect can trigger thermal runaway — “a chain reaction leading to a violent release of stored energy and flammable gas” that can spread to nearby batteries or combustible material.

PHMSA also warns that batteries already known to be damaged, defective or recalled carry meaningfully higher risk than new ones, since they have “greater potential than undamaged lithium batteries to short circuit, to release heat, or even to cause a fire.” That distinction explains why CPSC is not telling Hererod owners to simply charge the devices more carefully or store them away from flammable material — it is telling them to remove the units from the home entirely.

A warning instead of a recall

CPSC has taken this route before. In 2025, the agency issued a nearly identical unilateral warning for roughly 17,670 NEWDERY power banks sold exclusively on Amazon, after nine reports of explosions and ignitions, including one fire that caused $2 million in property damage and one burn injury. In that case too, the importer had refused to conduct a recall, and CPSC issued the warning on its own authority rather than waiting on a company that would not cooperate.

The agency has used the same unilateral approach against larger sellers, too. A 2025 warning against Yiisonger power banks, also sold on Amazon and also left unaddressed by an unresponsive manufacturer, covered about 93,000 units after 79 reports of the devices exploding, igniting or swelling, including one fire that caused $15 million in property damage. Measured against that incident, the scale of the Hererod warning is smaller, but CPSC applies the same urgent language to both cases because the underlying battery hazard does not depend on how many units are in circulation.

For the Hererod units, CPSC’s instructions to owners are specific: do not place the jump starters or power banks in household trash, curbside recycling bins or retail battery-recycling boxes, any of which can trigger a fire from a damaged lithium-ion cell. Instead, the agency says, contact a municipal household hazardous waste collection center and dispose of the devices through that program. Anyone who has experienced an incident with the product can also file a report directly with the government through SaferProducts.gov, the database CPSC uses to track emerging hazards before a formal recall is ever negotiated.

No injuries or deaths have been confirmed in the 16 Hererod fire reports CPSC has logged so far, but the agency’s language — warning of “serious injury and death” — reflects how it treats lithium-ion fire hazards generally, independent of whether a specific incident has produced a casualty yet. With the manufacturer still not responding and no recall mechanism in place, the roughly 12,500 units already sold remain the responsibility of the people who bought them.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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