SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20160715-5B9E7-1582121. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Craftsman 247.25001 (Ride on Mower 24hsp 42" Serial # not temped on frame the number melted from under seat). Incident: This consumer is reporting his zero turn rider lawnmower purchased from Sears in Dodge City, Kansas during the Fall of 2014. The caller had no problems with this mower until the evening of Saturday, July 9th, 2016 when he was mowing after taking breaks between mowing his five acre property. He had taken a break of around two hours, went back to the mower and began working again, there were no indications that there was any problem with the unit, no noise, no bad odor etc., however after only thirty minutes he felt the heat from flames due to the mower catching fire. He did smell something but it was not a bad odor and though maybe someone was grilling. He measured the area using gasoline leaks, burn marks on the grass beginning 15 feet from the turn, to 63 feet to where he realized that it was on fire. He immediately got off the mower & rushed to his house to contact the fire department to extinguish the approximately seven foot high flames. The lawnmower is burned beyond repair. He calculated that riding about 5 miles per hour that would be approximately 10 seconds from the time the leaking began until the time it burst into flames. He is reporting this incident as severe fire, burn and explosion hazard. There are no injuries to report. He did contact the retailer July 11th, 2016 but he believes he may have gotten the runaround. He contacted the manufacturer July 12th, 2016 and spoke with [REDACTED] at 1 (800) 659-5917 where he was transferred to her. She assisted the caller with completing a report and said he would be contacted. Caller checked with Great Bend, it's Sears