Fire Officials Urge Dehumidifier Checks After House Fires

OTSEGO, Minn. (WCCO) -- Like many moms, Deanna Mayer has her hands full. So do her little girls, who came running into the room with stuffed animals in tow.

So it's no surprise that something like their dehumidifier is not on her mind.

"Whenever we leave somewhere my husband makes fun of me because I go through the house and I unplug everything but that's one thing I never really would have thought about until I saw the post," said Mayer.

The post was on Elk River Fire Department's Facebook Page, warning people to check if their dehumidifiers were on the recall list.

Two of them caught fire in homes in the past two months, one of which had been recalled.

"That prompted me to go unplug ours right away until I had some time dig into it further and look at it," Mayer said.

Sure enough, her 8-year-old dehumidifier was on the recall list, a scary discovery she never expected.

"With it running 24/7 it could have ran and been fine but there's that small chance that while we were away or at night when my daughters sleeping downstairs that it would have caught fire," Mayer said.

Mayer says the company is sending her a repair kit, but she'll likely just throw this one out. Buying a new one is a price this mother is willing to pay.

"I mean you think about your smoke detectors, you think about your carbon monoxide detectors but a dehumidifier? I would have never thought to have checked a recall list," she said.

The Elk River Fire Department wants to also remind everyone to check their smoke detectors. They say that's how one of the families was quickly warned to get out of the house when the dehumidifier caught fire.

To see if your dehumidifier has been recalled, click here.