Fire Prevention Week runs October 4 through 10, 2026, and for the second year running, the National Fire Protection Association has built the campaign around lithium ion batteries. This year's theme, "Charge into Fire Safety: Safe Charging Is a Superpower," focuses on the everyday charging habits behind phones, laptops, power tools, e bikes and scooters. For rental property maintenance, this is a useful prompt to look at where and how tenants are charging devices, not just whether the smoke alarms work.
The NFPA says the 2026 campaign responds to a sharp increase in fires linked to lithium ion batteries, tied to a roughly 10 percent annual rise in incidents involving devices like these. The batteries store a lot of energy in a small space, and they can become a fire hazard if they are damaged, counterfeit, charged with the wrong cable, or left charging somewhere heat cannot escape. Fire Prevention Week itself dates back to the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire and always falls on the week containing October 9.
Where lithium ion risk shows up in a rental property
E bikes and scooters are the clearest case. They are increasingly common in multifamily buildings, and a battery pack charging overnight in a stairwell, a hallway or a cluttered storage room is a very different risk than the same battery charging in an open space with a smoke alarm nearby. Building or unit rules that push charging into safer, more visible locations, and away from exits, are worth reviewing before the colder months bring more indoor charging.
Power tools left by a maintenance crew are another blind spot. A drill or a saw battery left charging overnight in a utility room is easy to forget about.
A Fire Prevention Week maintenance walkthrough
This is a reasonable week to add a few extra items to a routine unit or common area inspection. Check for damaged or frayed charging cables, and replace anything that is cracked, pinched under furniture or missing its strain relief. Look for chargers plugged into overloaded power strips or daisy chained extension cords, since both raise the same fire risk that led NFPA to focus on charging this year. Confirm that any common area charging setup for e bikes or scooters sits away from exits and has a clear path to a working smoke alarm.
Smoke alarms deserve a second look regardless of the battery safety focus. Test every unit, and check the manufacture date printed on the back, since an alarm's sealed 10 year battery does not help if the unit itself is older than its rated life.
Turning a campaign week into a habit
NFPA's charging safety messaging is aimed at the public generally, but it maps cleanly onto a maintenance checklist for rental housing, where a landlord or property manager has some control over where charging happens and what condition the wiring is in. A week built around the theme gives a natural reason to walk every property once with charging habits specifically in mind, rather than folding it into a general fire safety pass that is easy to rush.
The batteries are not going away, and the safest properties are the ones where charging has a designated, ventilated place to happen rather than wherever an outlet happens to be free.
