SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20191119-3ECB2-2147376487. Severity: Injury, Seen by Medical Professional. Product: Gnome Pellet Stove Gnome (Gnome Pellet Stove, made by Thelin Hearth Products). Incident: After 5 days of using a new Thelin Gnome pellet stove, the stove mal-functioned by sending several cups of burning pellets out the air intake and causing a fire on the pellet stove floor mat. The stove had been set to low when I left the house. I was burning the best quality pellets, douglas fir, the [REDACTED] Fire Marshall had been to the house 3 times during the install process, and finally to provide an approval of the installation. I arrived home, after leaving for approximately one hour, to a house full of smoke and my dogs coughing. The fire was extinguished and I notified the Fire Marshalls, the installer, and the distributor of the stove. I also called Thelin the following day but they would not discuss the incident and said I should speak to the distributor. I asked for the name of the person at Thelin, and she disconnected the call. The distributor sent a technician the following day to look at the stove and told me that the stove mal-functioned and that it should have shut down before sending out the pellets. The fire basket was completely empty, so the stove finished the burn and, did shut down and was no longer on when I got home, but the fire was burning underneath. There were two piles burning, one under the fan which was melted, and another under the air intake. There is no reference in the user manual or installation manual about the stove sending too many pellets out, closing the air intake (except if it is whistling), or the auger continuing to run when the pellet basket is full of pellets. A few days earlier, I had sent a picture of the flame to the dis