SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20160920-6C86B-2147413931. Severity: Injury, Seen by Medical Professional. Product: Sears Craftsman 358.748260 (Sears Electric Variable Speed Electric Blower/Vacuum. 12amp, 220MPH/360CFM). Incident: I purchased the Sears Craftsman Leaf Blower/Vacuum in the summer of 2012. The next fall, in 2013, while using the blower, fire started to come out of the unit. I quickly unplugged it, and the fire subsided. My son was using the unit and suffered minor burns to his hand. I took the unit to the Sears store I purchased it from, and they said I must have been using a defective electrical cord. This was not the case, the cord I was using was in perfect working order, and has not given me any problems using it for other appliances such as a power washer or hedge trimmer. Since my blower was over 1 year old, they said it was also off of warranty (by about 2 months). I just received a safety recall notice in the mail describing the exact problem I experienced, however, my model number doesn't fall into the same range as the ones in the recall. I just want to report this because it is the same issue described in the recall notice and the potential for a more severe burn outcome than we experienced.