SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200418-2F547-2147372842. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Kenmore Kenmore Elite Dual Fuel Model 790.xxxx (Gas/electric stove. Kenmore Elite Dual Fuel Model 790.xxxx, where the last numbers denote the color. Ours is white). Incident: When we bought our house, it came with a Kenmore Elite Dual Fuel range, model 790.xxxx, where the last numbers denote the color. This uses gas for the cook top, and electricity for the oven and controls. On April 11, 2020, we tried to set the oven to pre-heat, and when we pressed the START button, the control panel exploded. There was a sound like a string of small firecrackers going off, and flames and black, oily smoke leaped up from behind the stove. While I had my fire extinguisher in my hand, and was a couple of seconds from 911, the flames quickly subsided. Happily, in this case, the front of the panel did not melt and burn, nor did the fir spread to the wall. The circuit breaker did not blow. I had to go turn that off manually, and we can still use the gas if we light it with a match, but the stove itself is destroyed. This an old unit -- possibly as old as 13 years. If it had simply failed, I would not have been alarmed, but they should NEVER explode into flames!