# fire started under gas stove knob after spilling water inside. Change the outlet to gfci ?



## pman626 (Jun 28, 2016)

my tenant spilled water into the knob hole, and caused a short which ignited a small fire.





This video shows what it looks like underneath the cover, the spark switches.
I'm trying to picture how the cheap little spark switch could self combust.

If I change the outlet to gfci, would such a spill trip the gfi?


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

GFCI's don't trip on overload, but on ground fault. What combusted? That area doesn't have anything that will ignite. Where did the flames come from?


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## Joeywhat (Apr 18, 2020)

chandler48 said:


> What combusted? That area doesn't have anything that will ignite. Where did the flames come from?


Probably the 15 years of food and grease stuffed in there.


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## pman626 (Jun 28, 2016)

chandler48 said:


> GFCI's don't trip on overload, but on ground fault. What combusted? That area doesn't have anything that will ignite. Where did the flames come from?


does spilling water onto a spark switch in the off position cause an overload only?

tenant said water spilled inside the hole during cleaning, and immediately started hissing and caused something to light up under the gasket. As soon as tenant unplugged the stove, the fire extinguished itself.
as soon as they plugged power back in, the fire started again at that ignition switch.

I'm assuming the water caused a short, which you say would not cause a gfci outlet to cut power?

based on that video, all i see under the knob gasket is the spark switch. Maybe it was self sparking;


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## pman626 (Jun 28, 2016)

so this is the part that burned up.

I can't imagine how a cheap little thing like that could spontaneously combust... can you?


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