Given the millions of dollars spent on research and development of home products, let alone the billions involved in manufacturing them and getting them to market, we sure do write about stuff exploding a lot.
A 45-year-old woman from Mwanzo Estate in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County died in a horrific house fire after ‘her fridge-freezer exploded and turned into a Bunsen burner’ in her house Wednesday night.
The woman and her two sons, both aged over 20, were asleep in separate bedrooms, when the incident happened.
Items which were in the kitchen were destroyed by the fire, which was quickly put out before it could spread to other rooms.
It is however suspected the woman died from toxic gases, which were emitted after the fridge caught fire. Attempts by neighbors to break into the woman’s bedroom to rescue her bore no fruits as she had already died by the time they were accessing her room.
According to the woman’s neighbour, she raised an alarm, when the incident happened but emergency response came in too late.
“We heard her screaming, saying: ‘Majirani nisaidieni. Tunakufa’. When we looked through our windows, we saw black smoke emanating from her house. We proceeded to her house, and we could see her directing spotlight rays at us. 
Since we couldn’t manage to break down her door, we knocked on other neighbours’ doors, but none opened them to us. By the time help was coming, she had already lost her life,” said the woman’s female neighbour.
The woman’s sons, a university graduate and a 2018 KCSE candidate, managed to flee their bedroom through the windows. One of the sons was rushed to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, where he is receiving treatment.
Police say they have launched an investigation into the incident.
How to prevent a fridge explosion
While there are few clear warning signs before a fridge explosion, one thing you can do is keep an eye (or rather an ear) on your refrigerator’s compressor.
Appliance experts at Sears Home Services ,say, when the fridge is on and working properly, its compressor creates a steady, high-frequency humming noise. But if your fridge makes a choppy sound or, even worse, no noise at all, the coils could be clogged.
“The easiest way to save your refrigerator is to clean the condenser coils,” Archer says.
Another option? Invest in a new refrigerator. Older appliances can pose an explosion hazard because they’re often overused and may lack modern safety features such as self-regulating heating elements.