SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200324-B2BA1-2147374225. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Maytag MDB8959SBS0 (Maytag dishwasher, Type No. 577-1, Stainless Steel Model MDB8959SBS0). Incident: On Thursday, March 12, 2020 around 10am, I started the "Normal" cycle wash with the "Heated Air Dry" cycle option on our Maytag dishwasher. After about 45-60 minutes, my children and I suddenly heard a loud "clicking" sound coming from the appliance. From our kitchen table, we turned to see a huge plume of white-ish smoke coming from our dishwasher, in the middle of the kitchen island. The clicking sound continued and I ran over to the dishwasher and opened the dishwasher door. A very large amount of smoke came billowing out from the vent on top of the dishwasher door and smoke from all around the sides of the dishwasher door. The clicking sound continued and so I immediately pushed "cancel" on the unit. The sound and smoke continued. I ran into our garage and flipped off the circuit breaker to the dishwasher and all island outlets. I ran back inside and our entire kitchen area was full of smoke that smelled like an electrical fire. The clicking sound continued for another minute or so and the smoke also continued to billow. After a minute or so, it stopped and the smoke continued for another few minutes. The entire unit smelled so strongly of electrical fire, we kept trying to fan the air and smoke outside. At 11:30am or so, I contacted Maytag and opened a case number with their Safety Department. They took our information and requested that a company ([REDACTED]) come out on Tuesday, March 17th to complete a diagnostic of the dishwasher to determine what exactly took place. On Tuesday, March 17th a technician from [REDACTED] came to our home and inspected the dishwasher.