Local Woman Shocked as Pyrex Dish Explodes

Sandra Felsot invited a group of friends to her Farmington home last Wednesday for a lunch that included a vegetable casserole.

She mixed the precooked ingredients in one of her Pyrex baking dishes, preheated the oven to 325 degrees, warmed the casserole for 20 minutes and then took it out of the oven.

"It was so hot, I could feel it through my (oven) mitts," she said. "It felt like it was melting."

Still, Felsot didn't think much of it. She placed the dish on the stove top before serving and went to visit with her guests. Moments later, everyone was startled by a loud pop, and Felsot rushed back into the kitchen.

"Everything exploded all over," she said. "The glass was shattered, food and glass were flung all over the kitchen. It took me three hours to clean it all up, that's what kind of mess it was."

At first, Felsot thought she had experienced some kind of freak accident. Then that night, while watching WDIV-TV, she learned she wasn't alone. The station's "Ruth to the Rescue" feature focused on a Pontiac woman who had the same kind of experience, except that her Pyrex dish exploded at the dinner table.

"I thought it was weird in the first place," Felsot said, "and then I heard this woman on TV talking about her Pyrex dish."

Felsot wonders whether the company has, over time, changed the formula for making the tempered-glass baking dishes. However, the current manufacturer, World Kitchen, says Pyrex dishes have been made from soda lime mined in the same Pennsylvania location for 60 years.

"Corning Incorporated began making Pyrex bakeware from borosilicate glass in 1915 and in the 1940s began using soda lime and borosilicate interchangeably," the company's website explains.

The company also notes the number of breakage reports is small given the billions of Pyrex pieces that have been used over the years. Felsot herself has a stack of Pyrex dishes in her kitchen cupboards.

However, according to the WDIV report, the Pontiac woman found scores of complaints about exploding Pyrex online, including "dozens" in Michigan. She subsequently contacted U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI), who has sent a letter asking the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission to look into the matter.

Felsot hopes sharing her experience will alert others to the potential dangers of using the baking dishes. She and her guests, she said, "were shocked. Pyrex is supposed to last forever."

After her three-hour cleanup, the cuts she suffered cleaning up the glass shards and the ruined lunch, she said, "I'm not using any more of those dishes, I'll tell you that."

World Kitchen offers the following safety tips on its website:

1. Always place hot bakeware on a dry, cloth potholder or towel. Never place hot bakeware on top of the stove, on a metal trivet, on a damp towel, in the sink or directly on a counter.
2. Never put bakeware directly on a heat source such as on a stove top, on a grill, under a broiler or in a toaster oven.
3. Always allow the oven to fully preheat before placing bakeware in the oven.
4. Always cover the bottom of the dish with liquid before cooking meat or vegetables.