The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced on Thursday that Hewlett-Packard (HP) is issuing a voluntary recall of nearly 70,000 notebook PC battery packs, in tandem with the CPSC and Health Canada, after two reported incidents of their overheating and cracking.

Though there have been no injuries from the overheating episodes reported, the lithium-ion batteries had caused a small fire that brought about "minor property damage."

The CPSC statement said that the recalled lithium-ion batteries "can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers." Even though the CPSC stopped short of identifying the manufacturer of the 70,000 battery units recalled by HP, it did state that they were China-made.

The Palo Alto, California-based HP said that the recall affects those lithium-ion batteries that have been shipped with various HP and Compaq laptops. These include nine models each of HP Pavilions and Compaq Presarios; two HPs models; and one model of HP Compaq laptops - all of which were sold between August 2007 and March
2008. A detailed list of the models affected has been given on the CPSC site.

In addition, HP is asking buyers of laptops with the recalled batteries to remove the battery from their notebook, and contact HP for confirmation of it being affected, and avail a free replacement of the battery.