According to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission report released last year, there were nearly 10,000 annual residential fire losses in which the source of the fire was in the clothes dryer or vent. Dryers are the third most common type of equipment involved in fires, ranking behind stoves and fixed area heaters.
Clothes dryers can catch fires due to the excessive lint build-up in the exhaust pipe or inside the dryer; this lint build-up is often out-of-sight. As a result, you should take the following steps to reduce the chance of your dryer starting a fire:
