SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200119-8DF70-2147375334. Severity: Unspecified. Product: Whirlpool WEG750H0HZ (Whirlpool Model WEG750H0HZ Gas Range). Incident: I recently purchased a Whirlpool Gas Range (Model Number WEG750H0HZ) which uses a touch screen to activate the oven. The screen easily gets dirty from the stove top use and needs to be cleaned often. I set the touchscreen to lock mode so I could wipe over the buttons, as it is intended to use. However, to remove the locked mode you simply swipe upward and as such my cleaning the screen almost immediately unlocked the screen and set the broiler to 500 degrees. This is incredibly dangerous to be able to active an oven simply by wiping a screen when it is supposed to be in a locked mode. Having only to swipe up to unlock the screen is something a 3 year old child could do. A child can literally start the oven by swiping up then pressing whatever button they want. I have read multiple other public reviews on the touch screen activating the oven when it was not intended, such as a few drops of water landing on it. In this instance, it nearly caused a fire at 5 am. There are other people who also put the screen in locked mode so they could wipe it down and the motion of wiping unlocked it and started the oven.