When firefighters arrived at Austin Parra’s home on January 12, 2017, they could see smoke and the charred remnants of an office chair outside.
Parra, then 20, had been transported to the hospital. His mother explained to firefighters that her son’s chair caught on fire while he was sleeping, and he was burned as he carried the flaming chair outside.
Anthony Dignoti, the Wethersfield, Connecticut, fire marshal in charge of investigating the incident, could see that the door and door frame were damaged by the fire as well. He noticed bowls strewn about, which he wrote in his official report had been filled with water in an attempt to extinguish the fire.
But most interesting to Dignoti were a white USB cord. Part of the cord was hanging off the chair and still intact, but the other side was stuck to the seat and had melted into a bare wire, he said in his report and an interview with CNN.
Dignity ultimately concluded that the fire originated with the cord Parra was used to charge his cell phone. His report stated the cord experienced a short circuit, and while it was unclear why this happened, “the heat produced by the cord ignited the upholstery for the office chair.”
The cord had been branded with the name of the world’s largest online retailer: Amazon.
It was sold by one of Amazon’s popular private label lines, AmazonBasics, which offers budget-friendly products including consumer electronics, household appliances, home goods and office accessories.
Launched in 2009, AmazonBasics has grown to offer more than 5,000 products, according to the retailer. Its mission: identifying everyday items that Amazon can create at a similar or higher quality and lower price point when compared to existing name brands — a strategy also employed by companies such as Costco and Target.
A growing number of AmazonBasics products, which the company promotes heavily on its site, have become bestsellers since the line’s inception, and many have ratings above four stars, according to Marketplace Pulse research. In recent months, the online retailer’s sales have been soaring, as millions of Americans have been staying at home — and in many cases working remotely — during the ongoing pandemic.
But consumers have raised serious safety concerns about AmazonBasics items in complaints to government regulators and in reviews posted on Amazon’s own website. Since 2016, at least 1,500 reviews, covering more than 70 items, have described products exploding, catching on fire, smoking, melting, causing electrical malfunctions, or otherwise posing risks, according to an analysis of AmazonBasics electronics and appliances listed on its website.
The reviews identified represent a small fraction of the overall purchases of the products, and fires caused by consumer electronics is not unique to Amazon branded items. User error can also be a factor, as can faulty or aging wiring within a home or a defective device being used in conjunction with the product.
But when well-made and used properly by consumers, electronics like those sold under the AmazonBasics name should rarely pose dangers, said electrical engineers interviewed by CNN.