A terrifying explosion from an e-bike battery reduced a Troutdale, Oregon home to a charred shell in a matter of seconds Thursday night, with the entire nightmare captured on a cellphone video that shows flames erupting like fireworks inside the living room before roaring out the front door.
Kari Ann Peniche, the former “Celebrity Rehab” and Playboy personality, was at the five-bedroom house on East Historic Columbia River Highway with her family when her son noticed a strange smell. At first, they thought a skunk had sprayed one of the pets. Then he pointed to his e-bike battery sitting near the door. Smoke was already pouring out of it.
Peniche started recording. Seconds later, the battery detonated. The video, later shared widely online, shows the sudden violence of thermal runaway: intense heat and flame shooting outward, the interior of the wood-frame home glowing orange, and thick smoke billowing through the doorway and windows while the family scrambled to escape. From the porch and stairs outside, the house looked like it had been hit by a bomb.
Gresham Fire Battalion Chief and Fire Marshal Shawn Durham said investigators determined the blaze was caused by the explosion of lithium-ion batteries used for an e-bike. The home contained as many as three electric bikes or scooters. Durham described the speed of the fire in blunt terms: once one cell fails, the others react immediately. Watching the family’s video, he said, “it looks like fireworks mortars inside the living room.”
All six people inside, Peniche, her daughter, her son, her boyfriend, her caretaker and the caretaker’s wife, made it out alive. One cat died. The family also got three dogs to safety. The entire house was gutted. Peniche later told TMZ she lost nearly everything, including artwork, paintings, magazines she had appeared in, and gowns from her pageant days.
Firefighters arrived to find heavy flames already consuming the structure. There were no hydrants in the area, so crews had to call in water tenders from Corbett Fire to keep fighting the blaze. Durham noted that lithium-ion batteries store enormous energy and can overheat from overcharging, the wrong charger, damage, or manufacturing defects. The heat they generate is extreme, and once thermal runaway starts, it is nearly impossible to stop.
This is one of at least three lithium-ion battery fires Gresham Fire has responded to in homes since the start of October. Statewide, Oregon has seen a sharp rise in such incidents, 649 between 2020 and 2025, with the numbers more than doubling in recent years. More than half occur in residential buildings. Fire officials across the country have issued repeated warnings: never charge e-bikes or e-scooters indoors unattended, never use unapproved chargers, and never store the batteries near exits.
In the video, the transformation from a quiet living room to an inferno happens so fast that the camera itself is jolted by the blast. What began as a routine evening ended with a family standing outside watching their home burn, the glow visible through the autumn trees, while toxic smoke poured into the night sky. Peniche and the others escaped with their lives. The house, and almost everything in it, did not.
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