
Photo: Steve Gagne/Facebook
Designer Steve Gagne awoke to strange sounds and the smell of burning chemicals. Of all the tasks completed with his 15-inch MacBook Pro, nearly burning down his house was its final act.
The battery on Gagne’s MacBook Pro exploded three days before Apple announced a recall on mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pros of certain serial numbers housing batteries vulnerable to overheating.
Gagne showed off the charred laptop in a Facebook post and urged MacBook Pro owners to check with Apple Support to see if their machine is eligible for a replacement battery.
The potentially hazardous units were sold between September 2015 and February 2017, according to the Apple support page explaining the battery recall program. A box on the page lets users type in their MacBook Pro serial number to determine eligibility.
Apple issued the recall on June 20 after it received 26 reports of battering overheating, a few of which left users with minor burns. In 17 of the cases, fires caused minor property damage.
Gagne’s machine was not plugged in when the fire started. It was in Sleep Mode with the screen closed, he said.
“Normally I keep my MacBook either on my couch or in a basket with notebooks, journals, etc.,” Gagne, of Pensacola, Fla., wrote on Facebook. “Thankfully, I uncharacteristically left it on my coffee table, and I really believe that this prevented my house from burning down.”

Photo: Steve Gagne/Facebook
This particular MacBook Pro was considered its best laptop by many users, according to the photography website PetaPixel, which noted it was preferred by photographers because it was the last to feature an SD card slot and regular USB ports.
This article was originally posted here