SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20180703-FD02A-2147387031. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Blackstone 1560 (36 inch Blackstone Stainless steel Gas Griddle Grill). Incident: I bought a Blackstone model 1560 36 inch stainless steel grill from Home Depot and used it first time on 6/30/18. It was scary and a big mess. Lucky I didn't burn the house down or get burned. This has a front trough that fills with hot grease that runs to the right and into an inadequately small catch container. Much of my oil ran out of the container, on to the deck and hot grease just went everywhere. The trough has a hole in the end of it and the grease runs out and turns back under, mostly misses the catch basin and ends up running all over. Next and worse, the consumer is then working over this big tray of hot grease with open flames a short distance away, right under the trough. If it were to drip over the side, the whole thing catches fire. This is a HUGE fire danger. And since that trough isn't flat on the one I got, the center fills up and holds hot grease. No offense but this design is flat out dangerous. I've seen ads on TV that show a newer and safer designed unit that has a rear exit for grease with a one inch steel wall in front. But that's not what home Depot and many others are selling. I talked with Home Depot and their only solution is to return it. I told them its dangerous. We will be looking to obtain the model with the newer safer rear grease exit. But what about all those unsafe units out there?? I have tried to contact Blackstone but get no response either by email or phone.