Wii Burns House Down, Xbox 360 Survives Fire
Nintendo has long held a track record in building safe and durable consoles and hand held gaming systems. The original Game Boy was found burned and melted with a copy of Tetris during the first Gulf War and is currently on display in a museum. However, accidents happen as a Nintendo Wii has burned the house down of a Colorado Springs resident.
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— VGS (@VGStations) May 24, 2015
Trevor Pellegrin of Colorado Springs, CO, lost his RV in a fire that investigators are claiming started with his Nintendo Wii. The picture above shows the remains of the Wii that burned the house down and also destroying his HDTV, couch, and other items in the RV. Oddly enough, and thankfully for Pellegrin, his Xbox 360 seems to have survived the fire.
Colorado Springs KKTV CBS news affiliate reported that smoking was ruled out as a possibility. After investigating the damage to the RV, the Nintendo Wii was determined to be the source of the blaze as “all other possible sources of ignition have been ruled out.”
The owner of the RV, Trevor Pellegrin said, “This had noting to do the the wires. It started in the actual console of the Wii.” The picture above shows the melted remains of the plastic housing of the Nintendo Wii after the house fire.
“I was coming back from a meeting and I got a phone call from my neighbor that my camper was on fire…. I was crying, I was screaming, I was still trying to get my things out of there,” said Trevor.
According to Pellegrin, he was watching Netflix on the console on Tuesday, May 19. He turned it off when he left.
“There’s no warning label on that Wii saying unplug after use that it may cause a fire, there’s no warning label so I didn’t know to do that, to unplug it.”
The Nintendo Wii itself does not take a lot of power to run, even in standby mode. In a completely powered down state, the console only draws 1.3 watts of power if the Connect 24 feature is off. Connect 24 is a feature that keeps the Wii’s Wi-Fi connection on constantly to download updates and receive system updates. If on, the console will draw just shy of 10 watts averaging about $1 a month in electricity costs. The console will be warm if Connect24 is left on, but it is doubtful that we will be able to determine if Pellegrin had the feature on. Conditions such as a lack of dust removal from the console by way of a compressed air can could also have brought about conditions favorable for a fire.
Nintendo has not responded to a comment from KKTV or Mr. Pellegrin.
The Nintendo Wii is part of the seventh console generation which included the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The Wii was originally released in 2006, and became,to date, the 5th best selling console ever with a lifetime sales of 101.52 million units. It was succeeded by the Wii U which the Inquisitr has covered previously.
[Image Source | Scott Barbour / Getty Images]
