Overview
- An inquest found it was "more likely than not" that a DX C10DCER-80 Hoover condenser tumble dryer started the house fire that killed Sohaib Ahmed and his nine-year-old daughter on 8 June 2025.
- Senior coroner Martin Fleming warned that as many as 1.6 million Hoover and Candy condenser or vented dryers could share the same characteristics and called for a formal root cause analysis and consideration of halting sales pending that work.
- The Office for Product and Safety Standards told the coroner it has received numerous product fire notifications about this model and previously wrote to Haier in December 2025 asking the company to identify root causes linked to two fatal fires.
- Haier, which owns the Hoover and Candy brands, told the coroner it found no evidence of an elevated safety risk, said production of the DX C10DCER-80 and related 'Infinity' models ended by early 2022, and said it will continue to monitor incidents.
- Experts to the coroner said the dryer type can burn almost completely once alight, making forensic identification of initiating faults such as tracking, defective solder joints or heater relay failure very difficult and leaving regulators to weigh further technical study or safety action.