Cats responsible for 107 house fires in Seoul, South Korea in past 3 years. Discuss.

The Korea Herald has published a very short article with a very surprising headline: Cats responsible for 107 house fires in Seoul in past 3 yrs.

The mind boggles. How could this have happened? That is the pressing question. And this is the answer that they have provided. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters cats have started these fires by turning on the electric stove in the kitchen with their paws. And almost half of the fires were started when the cats’ owners were out.

Cats can't turn on dial buttons
Cats can’t turn on dial buttons. Can they?! Image in public domain.

The problem is this: in Korea, electric induction cookers often come with touch-sensitive buttons. They can be switched on by a cat who jumps up onto the hob of the cooker and in doing so places her paw on one of these touch-sensitive buttons and turns on the hob. The rings overheat as there is nothing to heat up and the cooker catches fire. I’m guessing that that is what is happening.

An official at the agency, Chung Gyo-chul, advised “pet owners to pay extra attention to fire risk”.

That’s it. That is the rather surprising news. I would argue that it is cooker manufacturers in South Korea who need to pay attention to the risk! 😊.

This is not a cat problem. Not at all. This is a human problem. This is a manufacturing problem. It is manufacturers not taking into account the possibility that a domestic cat will jump up onto the hob of a cooker and turn on the cooking ring.

No doubt these are very fancy cookers with sheer surfaces; designed for human use and to be aesthetically appealing to humans. But the manufacturers are at fault. They have carelessly cut out of the equation the domestic cat when designing their cookers.

These cookers are impractical. The estimated number of pet cats in South Korea as at 2020 is 2.58 million. There’s been quite a consistent growth in the pet cat population since 2010. The figures come from the website statistia.com. The number is large enough not to be ignored by manufacturers of cookers.

And it is highly plausible that a cat might learn to jump up onto the top of a cooker because it had been previously used and had cooled down so that it remained warm. I should say that this is a hazard to domestic cats. Perhaps some of these cookers have a cover on them which can be drawn over the hob when it is not in use.

Note: This is a video from another website which is embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Below are some pages on hazards to domestic cats in homes:

2 thoughts on “Cats responsible for 107 house fires in Seoul, South Korea in past 3 years. Discuss.”

  1. The author of the best comment will receive an Amazon gift of their choice at Christmas! Please comment as they can add to the article and pass on your valuable experience.
  2. I am lucky my burner knobs are on the back of my stove and must be pushed in first to turn on the burner. I bought it precisely for this reason knowing my cats won’t stay off it. No amount of scolding will keep a cat off the counter. I even tried a squirt gun and still they defy me. Unlike a dog a cat will do as it pleases. 🙂

    Reply
    • Well-done. You’re better than me. I remember, many years ago I lived in an apartment with this kind of cooker. It was a very fancy cooker which was there when I bought the apartment. At the time I lived with a cat. It never occurred to me that my cat could turn on the cooker.

      Reply

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