SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200814-B2BBF-2005946. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Kenmore 405 73163310 (Kenmore 1100 watt, 1.6 Cubic Ft., counter top microwave oven Model 405 73163310). Incident: The microwave was set to 3 minutes and in use, when the consumer noticed a burning odor. She also saw smoke and sparks inside the microwave. She opened the microwave oven door and removed the paper plate, which was on fire, and threw it into the sink. The sparks stopped as soon as the door was opened. There was no metal inside the microwave. At the time of the incident, the paper plate was sitting on the glass tray that spins. When I opened the microwave door and removed the paper plate (that was on fire), there were also flames shooting from the inside / right side / vent holes - closest to the back inside wall of microwave. Unplugged microwave and worked on clearing out the smoke in the kitchen from the microwave and the paper plate in the kitchen sink. Afterwards, the consumer found the inner roof and both interior sides of the microwave were blackened in color. There were no injuries. The microwave is co-owned. I have a hearing impairment and the connection was too low in volume for me to hear the manufacturer's office staff voice while they put me on hold, so I asked Jean to talk to them. They transferred the call to their maintenance department and she ended up giving her name, address, phone number to them. At that point they said the warranty only covers during the first year from purchase. 8/14/2020: She called the manufacturer and told their rep. what happened. The consumer provided her model & serial number. The consumer was placed on hold, while the rep. consulted the service department. The service department rep. told her that if the microwave was less than a