Fire from above, up in Flames: Petzl MYO and MYOLITE3

Imagine a great night camping, you’ve had a nice hike in and enjoyed the sunset with a warm meal and you snuggle into your sleeping bag to snooze, your dreams shift from that pristine crystal clear alpine lake to wildfires and carnage, bunnies with singed fur and all. Suddenly you wake realizing it is your hair that is singed or your highly flammable sleeping bag!!!! This is no joke and it could happen…

I just got this notice concerning the fire hazard of a few of these very popular headlamps.

Do not use rechargeable batteries with any of the Petzl MYO series headlamps sold from Feb 2003 thru Aug 2008. When the lamp is used with rechargeable batteries, if a short-circuit occurs in the cable connecting the battery case to the lamp, the cable can spark, melt, or catch fire. This poses a burn hazard to the user.

Apparently there were at least 13 separate cases of melt down, one of which burned the users hand and a few others that singed hair.

US Recall News has a complete list including model numbers for the warning which covers around 322,000 units so please if you or some one you know uses a MYO or MYOLITE3 check the numbers.

If you own one of the headlamps it is safe to continue using it WITHOUT rechargeable batteries. It appears that Petzl plans on sending out a warning sticker as a means to remedy the problem. However I will gripe a bit more and trade mine in where I bought it. Fire is scary stuff!!

CONSUMER CONTACT: FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT PETZL AMERICA TOLL-FREE AT (877) 740-3826 BETWEEN 8 A.M. AND 5 P.M. MT MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, OR VISIT THE FIRM’S WEB SITE AT WWW.PETZL.COM

The above Petzl site has great info about the warning as well as a brief Q & A to help with some concerns.