That number is surprisingly small to me - less than 300 incidents in almost 20 years. And there were over 800 million passengers in the US in 2018.
I suspected that the numbers would be higher in recent years, due to the explosion (pun intended) of lithium batteries in consumer products.
My suspicion was confirmed when I counted the reported incidents - they've been climbing every year for the past six years.
They nearly doubled from 2014 to 2015, and again from 2015 to 2016.
1 in 1994 6 in 2010 8 in 2013 9 in 2014 16 in 2015 31 in 2016 46 in 2017 49 in 2018
26 in 2019 thru August 31. If that pace holds, there will be just 39 this year.
Either batteries suddenly got markedly safer, or this year's a remarkable anomaly. Or it might be that many incidents occur during the busy holiday travel seasons, so 2019 could still see an increase over last year.