No. If these things are totally safe, why do you say you do not charge them overnight? You contradict yourself.
No. I said I don’t charge anything over night.
Right, you don’t charge batteries overnight or while you are out.
Anyway, to put it bluntly, I don’t know anything about you. There are many many knowledgeable people on CPF, and the concensus is to never leave charging LiIon cells unattended. You take the wee wee out of these people, but it is quite obvious that there is a large body of knowledge on that forum. Your derogatory comments about them makes you look stupid. And clearly you do not understand the difference between an enclosed battery pack and a loose cell. The hobby charger shop that caught fire should be enough warning that these are not without risk. If you are willing to trust in manufacturing standards, fine.
By the way, I charge my drill, hedge trimmer and strimmer batteries in the garage.
No my comments will more than likely be agreed with here. All I will say is if you are scared of li-ion, don’t use them. And please don’t insult my intelligence when it comes to li-ion. You are suggesting that a phone or laptop battery is safer because it is enclosed but then you give examples of fires involving phones and laptops. I have not heard of a torch fire yet.
And MY consensus is to not leave them unattended, theirs is to use fire proof materials .
You may also find a lot more knowledge here.
How many homes have a battery powered hoover, a battery powered laptap and/or tablet and or portable music player, a battery powered phone, a battery powered cordless drill and so on? There are far far more of these out there than 18650 powered lights. My home is full of such things. Statistically they are far far more likely to suffer catastrophic failure simply due to the number of them out there. And yet despite the precautions such as an enclosed package, they have caught fire.
I am not scared of LiIon, and I do not insult your intelligence, I am questioning your knowledge, not the same thing, and you contradict the recommendations from many respected sources. Ever wondered why manufacturers put cells in a sealed hard plastic case rather than selling loose batteries with a simple protection circuit held on with a thin plastic film? And why for example do Xtar boast that their chargers are made from fire retardant materials? Why do Fenix boast about their new cells having a protection circuit enlosed in a metal casing?
I made no mention of fire proof materials. The hard plastic casings are NOT fireproof, that is not their purpose.
Yes you did.
‘According to many knowledgeable people on CPF you must keep an eye on them when charging, and place the charger on a fire proof surface.’
And the reason they supply battery packs rather than individual cells is because a laptop won’t run on single cells it needs a higher voltage, so a pack is made which can be configured in series and parallel. Not for safety reasons.
I’m not sure I understand your stance, early in this thread you would not buy li-ion, now you home is full of them. Do you watch all of them whilst you are charging them as you said earlier?
The fire proof issue is because you expressed yourself too loosely, as if referring to the pack casing.
But you are ill informed. A pack is nothing to do with voltage.
I have loads of appliances that use one or more AA and AAA cells, none use cells in an enclosed removable pack. Not one. Zilch. I have loads of appliances that use LiIon cells, not one uses bare cells. A pack ensures that the cells can be managed by custom electronics, that the cells are matched, and not swapped around, and that the protection circuits are protected from tampering with. It also ensures that the pack can only be charged with a matching charger, which behaves in the manner decreed by the maker of the appliance. That charger will have been manufactured to their standards, and QC, and the same is true of the battery pack. The battery pack will also be specific to the appliance and cannot be substituted for another from another appliance, unless the manufacturer decides they want that i.e. for multiple products that they make. Clearly there are third party battery packs and chargers for many appliances, and they are best avoided unless you can be assured of the quality e.g. made by a respected brand.
I expressed myself very clearly. You did not read my post properly.
Are you seriously trying to tell me battery packs are made for safety only and have nothing to do with voltage. You are very, very wrong. And incase you hadn’t noticed a lot of battery packs are NiMH as well. The reason electrical items that run on one or more AA don’t have battery packs is so you can use alkalines. As the cost of making a battery packs would also be high.
First, I thank all of you for your input. To Leif/Marcl: at the end of the day, I think the most important part is what you are comfortable using. I have been using Li-ion for as long as possible, with no problems to date. There have been numerous fires reported from using NiMH and Probably even NiCD. Be careful, buy high quality parts, and make sure the wiring you are plugging in to is wired correctly, and whatever other concerns you may have.
Lief, I honestly would be more fearful of leaving things charging in the garage because 1, there is NO smoke detector in mine as it is detached; 2, that is where my gas hot water heater is. So my level of comfortz using this scenario, is much different from yours…which again, boils down to why use Li-ion vs NiMH, in my opinion.
Again, thanks to all for your information. Will report back final outcomes when light received.
Yes let us know what you go for. And I hope it works for you.
Marc
Well there we go, we disagree. Although I could, I won’t comment further simply because I think this might turn off the OP and others, in fact I think we passed that point some time back. 
With luck the OP has obtained some useful information.