This IKEA Product Is Setting Things on Fire
By Hadley Keller. Photos by: Getty Images and courtesy of IKEA.
Every so often, IKEA releases a hot new item, but this one might take that label too far. According to one Swedish customer, the metallic Blanda Blank bowl spontaneously turned into a veritable miniature fire pit during one hot weekend. The Swedish English language paper The Local reports that Richard Walter placed some grapes in the innocuous bowl last weekend and turned away for a moment. When he returned, the bowl was smoking and his unsuspecting fruit was ablaze.
"I saw it was burning in the grape bowl," Walter told Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, according to The Local. "How is that possible, I thought. Then I saw there was one intense point where the sun hit the twigs, and that's where it started."
It seems the bowl's metallic material and curved shape, no doubt aesthetic decisions rather than pyrotechnical ones, created the perfect fire starter in the hot sun, catching the light in just such a way as to scald the bowl's contents. As proof of his experience, Walter posted a video to Facebook showing himself burning scrap paper in the unexpectedly dangerous serving bowl.
For its part, IKEA responded promptly to the claims, vowing to investigate the pyromaniacal tendencies of the Blanda Blank. "We take this information very seriously and will now investigate what happened," IKEA spokesperson Emil Eriksson told Aftonbladet. Until then, best to keep your curved, metal bowls away from scorching temperatures, unless you're looking for a way to serve s'mores sans bonfire.
More: 8 Things You Didn't Know You Could Get at IKEA
This story originally appeared on Architectural Digest.
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