A man lost his RV and many personal belongings in a blaze that firefighters believe his Nintendo Wii could have started.
“This had nothing to do with the wires,” RV owner Trevor Pellegrin to KKTV (via Wii U Daily). “It started in the actual console of the Wii.”
“I was coming back from a meeting and a I got a phone call from my neighbour that my camper was on fire… I was crying, I was screaming, I was still trying to get my things out of there.”
Pellegrin was watching Netflix and tells KKTV that he turned his Wii off when he left the RV.
“There’s no warning label on that Wii saying unplug after use that it may cause a fire, there’s no warning label so I didn’t know to do that, to unplug it.”
Firefighters thought smoking could’ve been the cause, but have apparently ruled that out and all over possibilities, save for the Wii. While the Wii is an older console, this is the first I’ve heard of one catching on fire like this.
Pellegrin said told KKTV, “This is where I live, this is my possessions. It might not be much, but it’s all I had. And then I lost it all, over a game console.”
Nintendo has yet to comment on the fire. Kotaku has reached out and will update should the company issue a statement.
Comments
11 responses to “Nintendo Wii Blamed For Fire”
It’s pretty unusual for a 10w appliance to burst into flames. Even if some wiis had localised overheating in wiiconnect standby, it’s just such a low number that it would harmlessly dissipate.
There are over 100 MILLION of these out in the wild, I’d be looking for a crappily placed modchip or having a good look at the RV power supply.
And what’s with that can of deodorant?
VIDEOGAMES CAUSE ARSON!
I can only assume that the Wii likely heated up from streaming Netflix but it would have had to of been under something that was likely flammable for example a light tablecloth for some kind of ignition – I think it was probably more an issue of complacency and unfortunate circumstances more than pointing the finger at any one object.
Wii didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
Logged in just to upvote this
Unless they ruled out smoking because the inhabitants don’t smoke, they should not have.
Smoking wreaks havoc on any electronics that require an air flow (fan), and can cause them to overheat.
Good chance the vents were either clogged up or vented. How many of these are there, 100 million? How long were these all plugged in for?
Lets say an average of a year each? Some gamers had them, others had them and didn’t use much but they probably left them in place for awhile.
That’s 100 millions years of on time and only 1 fire. Fishy.
Nope. Nope. I’m sorry but that’s rubbish. There would have to be a whole host of other things that contributed than just the console. Consoles do not do that on their own.
Seriously, of all the consoles, the Wii would be lucky to get warm enough to melt an ice cube, let alone start a fire.
if hes smoking inside his RV that could have caused the thing to be clogged up and so full of crap that the heat could have caused it to catch fire.
Something which is expected to be in millions of homes would have a thermal cutout fuse to protect against ignition-level temperatures… Having said that, the picture does suggest that the fire started around the console. My guess – Being a camper, poor earthing would be where I’d start. Poor earthing and a TV connected to an antenna could cause a 70-90v difference between the TV and Wii, which is fine but arching could be caused on a faulty cable.