GREAT NECK, N.Y. — In the span of about a week, New York City lost ten lives to fires that have put lithium-ion batteries back at the center of public concern.
On Oct. 28, an e-bike battery fire at the Patterson Houses in the Bronx killed four people, including an 11-year-old child. According to the New York City Council, the city has recorded 406 lithium-ion battery fires so far in 2026, compared with 241 over the same period in 2025. On Nov. 5, a fire in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, killed six people. Lithium-ion batteries were found at the scene, and the cause remains under investigation; no conclusion should be drawn until investigators complete their work.
The New York City Council has scheduled an emergency hearing for Nov. 20 on residential fires and the storage of lithium-ion batteries. It deserves input from fire services, engineers, researchers and residents alike.
Public response has rightly focused on certified products, safe charging, storage rules and enforcement. Those measures should continue. But a lithium-ion fire typically begins inside a single cell, when heat builds faster than it can escape and a chain reaction known as thermal runaway spreads to neighboring cells. Once that process is under way in a home or a stairwell, residents and firefighters may have very little time.
That is why prediction, detection and suppression at the cell and pack level deserve a place in the policy discussion. Identifying the warning signs of runaway earlier, detecting it reliably when it starts, and limiting its spread within the pack are engineering problems that complement, rather than replace, codes, certification and public education.
DELTTA SUNMASS INNOVATIONS LLC is developing DELTTA NEX GEN, a patent-pending battery safety architecture designed to address all three stages. It is important to be clear about where this work stands: NEX GEN is a development-stage technology. It has not been certified, it has not been proven in the field, and its proposed performance targets remain subject to independent evaluation and certification. No agency or organization has endorsed it.
For that reason, the company is publicly inviting scientists, engineers, testing laboratories and fire services to evaluate the architecture independently and to share their findings, whether favorable or critical. Life-safety technology should earn trust through transparent, third-party testing.
“The losses in the Bronx and Sunset Park are a reminder that safety has to be built in at every level, including inside the battery. We are not asking anyone to take our word for it. We are asking qualified experts to test our work independently and tell us what they find.” — Dr. Philip H. M. Thomas, Founder, Group Chairman & Global CEO, DELTTA SUNMASS INNOVATIONS LLC
As the Council weighs its next steps, the families affected by these fires deserve a response that brings every responsible tool to the table: stronger product standards, better storage practices, enforcement, and continued engineering work on the battery itself, tested openly and independently.
Contact for evaluation inquiries and responses: contactdeltta@delttagroup.com | greentechlabs@delttagroup.com
Sources
- NYC Mayor’s Office, transcript of Mayor Mamdani press conference on Bronx fire (Oct. 2026): https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/10/transcript--mayor-mamdani-holds-press-conference-on-bronx-fire-w
- Gothamist, “Battery found at deadly Sunset Park fire days after similar blaze in Bronx”: https://gothamist.com/news/battery-found-at-deadly-sunset-park-fire-days-after-similar-blaze-in-bronx
- New York City Council press release (Nov. 6, 2026), emergency hearing on residential fires and lithium-ion storage: https://council.nyc.gov/press/2026/11/06/3321/
- DELTTA NEX GEN video presentation: https://sunmass.delttagreentech.com/watch/