Some Owners Say iPods Burned Them

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating reports of iPods overheating and sometimes catching fire, injuring users.

Jamie Balderas said her new iPod Shuffle overheated while she was running, leaving a burn where it was clipped to her shirt.

“At first I thought, ‘How in the heck did I get burned right there?’ And then I remembered I had my iPod right there,” she said. “My skin started burning really bad, like it was a bee sting that wouldn't stop.”

She said she called Apple and even sent them pictures of her burn, but she was told it was an isolated incident.

However, search online and you'll find plenty of complaints about iPods overheating and photographs of damage.

Channel 9's sister station in Seattle, KIRO, asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission for all complaints related to iPods and burns or fires. Its reporter got 800 pages worth of information that included: In 2005, a Pennsylvania complaint that an iPod overheated, causing damage to a home and "harm to a minor son." In 2006, a teenager in Illinois woke up to find her iPod Nano "smoking and sparking." In 2007, in New York "smoke was billowing" out of a teenager's room because her iPod had "caught on fire."

Jamie Balderas said that's her biggest concern.

“As a parent of five children, all of my children have one, at least one. And they use these and sometimes they listen to them at night when they're in bed,” she said.

Documents from the CPSC state that lithium ion batteries could be the source of the problem. Millions of those batteries were recalled by Dell and Apple in 2006 because of fires caused by laptop computers overheating.

But the CPSC is not recalling any iPods because "the current generation of iPods uses a battery which has not been shown to have similar problems."

The agency also states that "the number of incidents is extremely small in relation to the number of products produced, making the risk of injury very low."

So far, Apple has not commented on the problem.

Meanwhile, a Kentucky teenager said an iPod Touch caught fire in his pocket and he hired John Mulvey to be his attorney.

“He felt severe pain, severe heat in his pants, ran to the restroom, removed his clothing and there was a burn mark through the pocket of his pants where the Touch was, and there was melting through his -- he had athletic-type underwear on that melted,” Mulvey said.

He's filed a lawsuit against Apple saying that teen suffered second-degree burns. He's seeking more than $200,000 in damages.

To contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission, call 800-638-2772 or e-mail info@cpsc.gov.

To see KIRO's original report, click here.