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What is a battery fire like in an ammo box? I imagine flames shooting up, catching the ceiling on fire, and the bottom getting so hot that it catches the shelf on fire.

I made a lithium battery pack for amateur radio once. I was scared of it for a while and charged it in my fireplace. If it catches on fire, well, that's the place, right? (They were A123 cells though. Not as firey as other chemistries.)

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A damaged battery's trapped energy is very explosive. A decent steel ammo box will contain the blast. It seems likely that a discarded battery found on the street might have been crushed or punctured by a vehicle wheel or similar https://youtu.be/HCGtRgBUHX8

You'd likely see if it had been damaged. The battery is protected by the plastic casing of the vape device.

Also, while ammo cans aren't 100% air-tight, they're pretty close to it.

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