SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20210928-46D82-2147360376. Severity: Injury, No First Aid or Medical Attention Received. Product: Kidde P4010ACS (Kidde P4010ACS hard-wired smoke alarm Model P4010ACS). Incident: I have six Kidde P4010ACS smoke alarms installed in my house. Kidde sent these to me as a replacement for a recalled version I had previously purchased. That alarm was recalled because they experienced a high rate of false alarms. I installed these replacement alarms back in May 2021. At 1:15am last night all detectors in my house started screaming FIRE! FIRE! My kids freaked out, everyone ran downstairs, and then after realizing there was no smoke in the house I started checking each alarm. I disconnected one in a bedroom which was rapidly flashing red/green and silenced it, at which point all the other alarms finally stopped. This faulty unit immediately went to an amber/red/pause flashing sequence, which the back of the unit indicates either means "faulty alarm, low battery, or end of unit life". The unit was silent (but disconnected) the rest of the night. This morning when I picked it up it started screaming FIRE! FIRE! again, and when I tried to silence it, the unit said "CANNOT SILENCE, TOO MUCH SMOKE". I then broke the safety tab and permanently disabled the alarm and battery (which is built in and not removable). My youngest child was in tears last night once this ordeal was over.