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Popular Toy Catches Fire
ClickonDetroit.com
updated 7:43 a.m. ET, Fri., May. 16, 2008
LIVONIA, Mich. - A popular children?s toy bursts into flames at a Metro Detroit home. The Fisher Price Power Wheels Jeep caught on fire at a Livonia home when it was just sitting on the charger.
Stacy Jenkins said her 3-year-old alerted her to the fire.
She heard it, thanks to her three year old.
"I heard him wake up. I thought I heard him playing with the blinds on this patio door that leads right into our bedroom. He had gotten up early and I heard this noise, a crackling sound."
That crackling sound wasn?t her son, but instead was the outside of her home going up in flames.
Jenkins described the scene. ?I got up, opened the blinds -- it was just a wall of fire. It was flames from bottom to top. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen."
She ran to the phone and called 911, while her husband did the best he could to put out the fire with a hose and an extinguisher.
Jenkins said, "Once they got here, they said there was no way the house would have been saved if we hadn?t acted as quickly as he did.?
The side of the house was charred, and the toy jeep is incinerated.
It was plugged into the outlet recharging overnight.
The fire marshal said it?s clearly the cause of the fire, which worries Jenkins.
"Lots of friends of mine have Power Wheels. They?re just everywhere, all over this neighborhood and everyone I?ve told this to has said, ?I have mine plugged into my garage, next to a can of gas for the lawnmower.? This is a tragedy waiting to happen, and I want people to know that."
The fire marshal has notified the consumer product safety commission about this fire and the toy he said started it.
Fisher Price recalled nearly 10 million of the Power Wheels toys in 1998 for a similar problem.
In that recall, the toy overheated while it was being ridden, charged, parked or stored.
The Jenkins toy was purchased after 2001.
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URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24658480/
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