+1 These battery storage/safety issues are crazy. I never have heard of a 5 gallon can of kerosene spontaneously combusting in a garage or having to dig a bunker in your backyard to store your turbine oil!

Also, I can attest to the smoke problem. A super experienced former hobby shop owner had a simple 3 cell go off in his garage. It burnt the garage and 2 cars but the real damage was the smoke (as many here have said). He had to live in a hotel for 6 months while they tore basically everything out of his house but the outer walls, ripped out everything to the studs and the subfloor. All due to smoke damage.

IMHO this battery/car/house fire issue has not impacted the AMA because they are secondary insurance but I think at some point the insurance companies are going to have something to say in this. His insurance company did a pretty thorough investigation and was seriously considering going after either the battery company or the charger company, I am not sure how that ended up I will ask him next time I see him.

I moved all of my batteries last night thanks to this thread, so I agree David you have done a service by posting. Your RV was a fixture at our events! I hope you get another or fix this one back up.