The wildlife scenario is particularly fantastical - people have campfires, they carry gas stoves, torches, guns, drones, cameras (with replaceable batteries!), candles, bikes, and hundreds of other things far more dangerous.
In most places you can repair your own car, buy parts, change breaks, Pour any liquid you want into the petrol tank, or the motor oil compartment. Imagine how dangerous that is!
And people sit here making up contrived scenarios "what if you repair your iphone battery, and then eat the old iphone battery! While on a plane! With a gas leak! With kids nearby!"
This is far from the only incident of li-ion batteries exploding on aircraft; indeed the FAA estimated that li-ion batteries exploded at a rate of once every ten days on US-controlled aircraft in 2017[1].
Terrestrial lithium battery fires are at least as frequent[2] and have been far more destructive[3]. Given that litihum battery fires have burned down houses, it's only a matter of luck whether one eventually starts a wildfire or not.
Given the established risks of even OEM lithium batteries, making it easier for the public to use lithium batteries of dubious origin and quality is not prudent.
With specific regard to wildfires, I take it you don't live in an area where wildfires are a serious risk. Open flames and other sources of ignition, including cigarettes, vehicles, and camp stoves are banned in wildlands during fire season. If cell phones exploded more regularly, they would, by necessity, be added to the list of prohibited items.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37570100
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/whats-behind-...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-07/lithium-batteries-in-...
[3] https://loudounnow.com/2020/08/23/faulty-lithium-ion-battery...
For decades batteries were replaceable, and now they are not. If it were true that OEM are more responsible with batteries, then we should have seen a massive decline in lithium battery caused fires. We seem to be observing the opposite?
Maybe rigid replaceable batteries, lile the ones found in cameras, are actually safer and better protected!
Secondly if this is a genuine safety solution, then it should deal with laptops, cameras, electric bikes, drones and other devices that have much larger batteries and which are user-replaceable, and where they have to be.
Thirdly, an unreplaceable battery turns a durable good into a throw-away device. Then it becomes e-waste and might kill more people through lead poisoning than it ever could from a minor fire.
No, it wasn't. That was Galaxy Note 7, which was a different phone.
(I still own and use a S7, btw.)
If your phone explodes in your hand because of something you did to the phone, then that's your problem. If you happen to be on an airliner at the time, however, your exploding phone is suddenly the problem of everyone else on the airliner and everyone the airliner will fall on if it crashes.
Similarly, if you're hiking in wildfire season and your phone explodes, that exploding phone is the problem of everyone in the surrounding area.
Further, not everyone who might want to use a third-party battery will have the know-how to appreciate these risks or appreciate that the civil liability from starting a wildfire will vastly exceed the amount of insurance coverage they could buy. The public needs some degree of protection against these kinds of risks because it's not reasonable to expect average people to understand the full implications of buying a cheaper battery.
It's not in the public interest to have widely-used consumer products randomly exploding, which is why people aren't generally allowed to do things like manufacture their own propane cylinders or gasoline cans. Large lithium batteries are similarly hazardous and should be treated similarly.
I think the ideal solution would be something along the lines of a right to repair combined with mandatory safety standards for lithium batteries. There wouldn't be as much of a safety issue if both OEM and 3rd party batteries were required to pass the same requirements and testing.