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A blazing Dell laptop forced workers at Yahoo to leave their workplace while firefighters responded to the scene.

"It was hot, the night we burned Chrome."

"Burning Chrome" isn't just the name of a William Gibson story. It's the remains of a Dell laptop where the owner has not returned a lithium-ion battery for replacement.

The Engadget blog received an account of yesterday's excitement at Yahoo's Mission College campus. Several hundred Yahoos had to be evacuated from the building, as the overheated Dell blazed away.

Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield snapped some pictures of the cremated remains of the unfortunate hardware. He titled the photo, "This gave a 45 minute "recess" to a few hundred employees."

It also appears that the Dell had been brought into Yahoo's confines by someone. Butterfield noted with his photo that corporate policy at Yahoo is "HP all the way."

A couple of Yahoo staffers who shared their observations with Valleywag noted a lack a panic or concern with fire alarms going off and smoke coming from the 8th floor research area.

"It was a perfect time to grab lunch," one noted.

For Dell laptop users who have not yet begun the process of exchanging their Sony batteries for newer ones, this should be a wakeup call. The situation at Yahoo ended up being a break in the work day, but the potential for this happening in a much more dangerous place should not be ignored.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.