Press release 2011.10.20 [Preventing Accidents Involving Heaters]
Preventing Accidents Involving Heaters
National Institute of Technology and Evaluation
Product Safety Technology Center
October 20, 2011
NITE (National Institute of Technology and Evaluation; President: Itaru Yasui) gave a presentation for the media on preventing accidents involving induction cooking stoves as shown in the attached materials
1. Press release
- Release date:
- October 20, 2011
- Title:
- Preventing Accidents Involving Heaters
- Publisher:
- Product Safety Technology Center
- Summary:
- Product accidents involving heaters*1 reported to the Product Safety Technology Center at NITE reached 2,314 cases*2 during the period from fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2010. Classifying these accidents by damage, they include 195 cases with casualties (233 persons), 64 cases with severe injuries (92 persons), 367 cases with minor injuries (540 persons), and 990 cases where a room or wider are caught fire*3 (43% of the total). Among accidents involving casualties, 101 cases (114 persons) were caused by improper use or carelessness. Classifying heater accidents by product, most fires involved electric heaters (948 cases), oil heaters (633 cases), and warm air oil heaters (281 cases). By cause of accident, accidents caused by improper use or carelessness reached 798 cases (34% of the total). With accidents involving oil heaters, 397 cases out of 633, that is over 60%, were caused by improper use or carelessness.
Heater accidents tend to start increasing in November. Especially after the Great Earthquake, people’s wish to save electricity increased the demand for oil heaters. It is anticipated that considerable numbers of people may take out old heaters which they have not used for a long time, or use unfamiliar heaters, leading to a further increase in accidents. Accordingly, NITE has decided to draw consumer attention to this issue to encourage proper use of heaters and to prevent accidents.- *1
- Limited to electric heaters, oil heaters, warm air electric heaters (including electric fan heaters), warm air oil heaters (including oil fan heaters), warm air gas heaters (including gas fan heaters) and gas heaters
- *2
- Number of accidents excluding overlapping cases or non-applicable cases at
September 30, 2011 - *3
- Fire in part of a building, such as a pillar or a floor
- Press briefing paper in Japanese
For more information;
National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE)
Product Safety Technology Center, Product Safety Investigation Division
Contact us
- Consumer Product Safety Public Relations Division Product Safety Technology Center National Institute of Technology and Evaluation
-
Phone number:+81-6-6612-2066
Fax number:+81-6-6612-1617
Address:1-22-16 Nankokita, Suminoe-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 5590034, Japan MAP