Recalled dishwasher causes fire

Dorset Fire and Rescue Service's fire officer Stuart Granger said the blaze caused by a faulty dishwasher in a house today could have been "an absolute tragedy."

ITV News has reported on the dangers of faulty white goods in homes despite a national recall and a faulty Bosch dishwasher caused a fire in the early hours of this morning.

Mr Granger said: "They (faulty dishwashers) do pose quite a significant risk. We are starting to see quite a few of these fires occurring, maybe through better awareness, but even so they are occurring.

"If they (the people involved in today's fire) didn't have an escape plan and didn't have smoke detectors, there is a good chance we could be looking at an absolute tragedy in that house overnight."

Read: Recalled faulty dishwasher causes house fire

Read: Do you own a potentially dangerous Bosch dishwasher?

Read: Recalled faulty dishwasher causes house fire.

Read: Do you own a potentially dangerous Bosch dishwasher?

Around 479,000 dishwashers ruled as a potential fire hazard remain in homes across the UK despite a recall from Bosch, ITV News has learned.

The manufacturer has issued a safety notice over the affected machines, while fire officials have called for the recall system to be overhauled.

ITV News' Consumer Editor Chris Choi has the exclusive report:

RecallUK, a website which lists all the Bosch recalls, has told ITV News it has been contacted directly by more than 20 consumers who have the affected dishwashers.

Bosch has said it has been inundated with calls from dishwasher owners after ITV News found almost half a million faulty machines made by the firm were still in use.

ITV News has found that almost half a million faulty Bosch dishwashers that could catch fire are still in use, despite a safety alert.

The Chief Fire Officers Association is calling for an overhaul of the recall system.

ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Choi reports:

READ: Do you own a potentially dangerous Bosch dishwasher?**

Bosch has just provided RecallUK with the latest number of recalled dishwashers they have managed to find and repair.

Of the 632,000 recalled in the UK (across Bosch brands) they have managed to find and repair 152,957.

This is 24% of the affected units and up 1.3% on the figure for September 2012.

These recalled dishwashers are between eight and 13 years old and many will have been scrapped.

Bosch is reluctant to provide an estimate of how many of these dishwashers they would expect to no longer be in use.

In theory, this leaves us with 478,940 potentially dangerous dishwashers still in people's homes.

However, this figure probably significantly overstates the actual number still in use.

Bosch will soon launch another press advertising campaign to find the missing dishwashers but due to the reduced success of these campaigns, we believe it is unlikely to significantly reduce the number of these dishwashers in people's homes.

This situation does not reflect a lack of desire or effort by Bosch to find the missing dishwashers.

What it does is demonstrate just how difficult it can be to find potentially dangerous products in people's homes.