Toys 'R' Us is investing a recent incident in which a ride-on dump truck toy sold to a couple caught fire and destroyed their pick-up completely.
Toys 'R' Us has apologized to the couple who bought the toy and has given them a refund. The company has also stopped the sale of the toy truck manufactured by Dynacraft.
Toys 'R' Us said that this appears to be an isolated incident, not a trend. The company has not decided on a full recall of the toy trucks, but will not sell it from now until the investigation is complete. The Tonka truck has a 12-volt battery, 45 minutes of running time, and a maximum speed of 4 mph.
Toys 'R' Us said the no-sale decision is rooted in abundance of caution and that it in touch with Dynacraft to determine the cause of the incident.
The couple had bought the toy truck as a present for their grandson. They were returning to their Bellingham, Washington home when the toy truck in their pickup caught fire on Friday night. They pulled over and saw flames coming out of the package.
State troopers could not douse the 20-foot flames. The fire department later arrived and put out the fire using water. The fire destroyed the couple's pickup completely.
The stop-sale decision comes just before the Black Friday shopping spree starts. It certainly is bad timing for Toy 'R' Us. Such spontaneous fires are not good for any product. Samsung had a similar experience recently, but on a far larger scale. Many of Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones caught fire at different places in a short period and the company had to recall the entire lot.