Smoking phone batteries: Two firefighter callouts to Napier cellphone business in one hour

Fire trucks then raced back to the business 30 minutes after the first callout, for an alarm activation. Photo / File

A Napier CBD cellphone business had a visit from firefighters two times in an hour on Monday after lithium batteries on site started smoking.

Fire and Emergency NZ Hawke's Bay area commander Ken Cooper said the first callout to the Emerson St business at 11.40am was caused by batteries being repaired that had "shorted out".

Fire trucks then raced back to the business at 12.10pm, only to find it was an alarm activation tripped by the activation of the first alarm 30 minutes earlier, Cooper said.