As shared charging sheds for electric bicycles spread, their fire safety has become a priority for communities and industrial parks. The pattern is consistent: incidents happen at night when nobody is around, start as smouldering cells, and involve a sustained rise in temperature before smoke or flame appears.

An ordinary video camera struggles to catch this stage — nothing looks wrong on screen, and by the time flame is visible the fire is usually spreading fast. The more mature approach combines thermal imaging with video analytics. A thermal camera continuously measures charging bays and battery compartments against both a rate-of-rise and an absolute temperature threshold, while a visible-light camera performs visual flame and smoke recognition; the two corroborate each other and hold false alarms down.

The response loop matters as much as the detection. An alarm should trigger on-site sound and light, cut the charging circuit, and reach duty staff and property managers, while retaining video before and after the event for later analysis.

When deploying, prioritise dense charging areas, distribution boxes and entrances, and pay attention to the thermal camera's field of view and mounting height so that obstruction or a bad angle does not skew the temperature reading.