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oh yeah its a wake up when you have your first lipo fire

My daughter wants an rc plane for her birthday and I'm terrified of those lipo's. Unfortunately, I can't always be around monitoring the battery.

Interesting point. What will we be teaching our children with regards to lipo safety? I know my son will have numerous lipo bags. Bags for charging and bags for storing batteries.
The end result of a tragic accident is simply not worth ANY risk.

its been my experience that if you just care for the packs in the same way you would a matched nimh pack (charge gently, let cool between charges, pay attention to your charger settings, etc) and balance charge every time, you ought to be good. even though ive had lipo fires those were my fault because i wasn't thorough enough and didnt check to make sure the charger was on the right setting. i still dont use a bag or an ammo box but i charge within the same room if not at arms reach, i charge in the shade if im outside at the track, and like i said ive become anal about checking my charger settings before i start, its 45 seconds out of the day to save you major headaches.

added on to the obvious things like avoid puncturing soft cases, keeping below 140°f after a run, and dont try to use the pack in a car that the battery cant handle. (for example, dont use a 20c 5000mAh pack in a truggy with an MMM and a 2650kv motor)

since my first and last fires, both on the same day, both sister packs on the same charger, ive yet to ruin a pack or the side of my house for that matter. lipos are perfectly safe if you simply use your head

Amen

Every time I've seen lipos catching fire, there was a human mistake (typically wrong charger settings, or "moving" parts inside the car that sliced through the case, durango rear driveshaft pin anyone).

They don't catch fire for no reason

Lipos don't kill people, people do

paul