SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20250924-15DA2-2147327571. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Matched catalog product: Whirlpool Model #wrf767sdhz 26.8 cu ft 3 door French door re. Source model text: WMC30516HZ0. Incident: I bought a new house in 2021 that had a built-in WHIRLPOOL Microwave manufactured in 2020, Model #WNC30516HZ0 - Serial #XVX2900584. It worked ok for about a couple of years. Then, one day, I placed a ramen dish into the microwave for 4 minutes, as I had done before with the same dish, without problem - but this time after about a couple of minutes, the microwave seemed to have exploded. I smelled the smoke and immediately ran to the microwave and tore the door open. There were flames on the inside, thick black smoke was escaping from it and from the surrounding cabinets that it was installed in [it's still in there]. Despite my panic, I somehow was able to stop the flames crawling up the inside walls. After I opened all windows and doors to clear out the smoke, I tried to clean up but the inside of the microwave would not get clean and is still totally burned and brown today. I was lucky the house did not catch fire! It was a traumatic event for me and I did not even want to use any microwave for a while. But recently, I advised the Whirlpool Corporation of the situation and asked for a replacement and the cost of removing and reinstalling a new microwave into the same kitchen cabinets. They only offered me 50% toward the cost of a new (cheap) microwave which I did not accept. I believe this is a dangerous product and the fact that it exploded out of nowhere could have caused much damage. I believe the company should stand behind their product and not hide behind a warranty t