SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200910-CD743-2147369890. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Devilbiss GT5250 WK2 (Devilbiss PowerBack 5250 watt generator). Incident: I filled the Devilbiss 5250 Powerback generator with fuel the morning after being hit by hurricane Laura and fuel started running out of corner of the fuel tank mounting location. Plastic tank is cracked and was not leaking before. Generator was in safe location during the hurricane and was not affected by storm. It would have caused a major fire and possible total loss of home and possible loss of life because leak was over the area above the muffler on the engine. Fuel leaked all over the generator and all over the ground and was very difficult to empty fuel from tank and minimize leakage at the same time and I was drenched in highly flammable gasoline. Found recall online that was dated in 1999. My generator manufacture date is 2005 and the fuel tanks still have the exact same problem after recall was published, so manufacturer did not fix problem, but accepted the risk as being more cost effective. I called the number listed in the 1999 recall and the company said they could not help, but said to call the number on the recall for repair (WHAT??? it's the same number I contacted him with). Typical corporate answer to get consumers to give up is placing them in a nonsensical loop where there is no resolution. Please help as I depend on this generator for electrical loss due to hurricane power line infrastructure damage that will take over eight weeks to restore. Previous recall number December 30, 1999 Release # 00-047 WASHINGTON, D.C. - % joins DeVilbiss Air Power Company (DAPC) of Jackson , Tenn., in alerting consumers about gasoline tanks used on certain models of port