Samsung definitely doesn’t need this right now.
Accounts of what started yesterday’s fire at a Samsung SDI factory have been conflicting, with Samsung and Tianjin’s fire department giving differing accounts of exactly how the fire was started.
While fire personnel said batteries on the production line were behind the incident, Samsung says it was caused by already-discarded faulty batteries.
The factory, which produced for the Note7, is set to supply batteries for the Korean conglomerate’s upcoming flagship, the Galaxy S8.
In a Weibo post that has since been taken down, the Wuqing branch of the Tianjin fire department wrote that the fire started due to the lithium batteries in the production workshops and consisted of half-assembled products.
The Weibo post said: “On 6 p.m., Feb 8. 2017, the Samsung SDI factory on Qingling Avenue, in the Wuqing Industrial Area caught on fire. We dispatched 19 fire trucks and 110 firefighters to deal with the fire, and as we understand it, the fire was started by lithium batteries and half-assembled products in the production workshops. The fire has been put out, and nobody was injured.”
The fire department’s account differs from that of Samsung SDI spokesman Shin Yong-doo, who according to Bloomberg, said the fire didn’t break out on the production line, but instead stemmed from part of the facility used for waste, including faulty batteries. Shin told Bloombergthat most of the factory was running as normal.
