Hi Jeff,

*"I keep a few on hand because some of the early Toshiblah laptops
would not run on charger power unless a battery (dead or otherwise)
was installed." *

I checked, the old Toshiba LT will run without a battery pack.

The airplane forum link mentioned fires with Lithium Polymer
Batteries http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209187

Did some searching concerning fires with Lithium Ion batteries and
while found mention of this being caused by internal shorts
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355814,00.asp , have not yet
found any mention of this happening to these old Toshiba Li Ion
batteries.

I did find a recall of newer Toshiba Li Ion packs (actually Sony Li
Ion cells) sold from April 2005 to October 2005
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09035.html

Do you know if the older Toshiba Li Ion packs used Sony Li Ion Cells?

Ken