SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20191004-1DA2B-2147377318. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: GE JS750EF2ES (GE Ceramic cooktop slide in stove. Slate Gray Model JS750EF2ES. Serial # RFF227320Q. I do not know the manufactured date as it is not on the label but i bought it new early 2016). Incident: We have a slide in GE stove/oven. It's in our island. The knobs are on the front of the unit since there is no back splash area due to it being in an island. The knobs turn on without any effort. There is a 'control lock' button on the control panel, however that only controls a child from changing the temperature of the oven. It does not "lock" the burners. We have no children in the house, thank goodness. On multiple occasions, ourselves, or our guests, have brushed past the stove, or leaned over it to reach something on the counter and turned the burners on without knowing it. We are not careless or reckless people but this has happened multiple times. It has reached the point that we have to leave the knobs off completely. I have been cutting vegetables on a cutting board on the flat top surface and my body has turned on the burner. Completely melted the cutting board to the surface before i realized it was on. I have burned hot pads, cooking utensils, scorched pans, etc on many occasions. The final straw was that some papers that were on the counter, were overhanging the burner (this is a completely flat unit that blends right in with the countertop) and the burner somehow got turned on. I only had one knob on the stove at the time and it got turned on. We came home an hour later to a fire in our house. This is absolutely ridiculous. The knobs should never be able to be turned on that easily. More than a dozen people in our family, or friends have accidentally done it. I know nothing should be on a stove, but a cooktop should not turn on by rubbing against it.