A popular budget heating-and-cooling fan has been pulled from the market after reports that it can catch fire. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that Merkury Innovations is recalling about 18,000 of its Hot + Cool heating and cooling fans because the units can overheat, posing a risk of serious injury or death from fire. The company has received two reports of the fans catching fire while plugged in, including one that caused smoke damage to a home.
The product and the hazard
The recall covers the Merkury Innovations Hot + Cool Heating and Cooling Fan, a portable bladeless unit that both heats and cools. According to the CPSC, the affected model carries the number MI-DHC02, printed on a white label on the bottom of the product and on the packaging. The fan-heater stands about 13 inches tall, measures roughly 5 inches wide and 5 inches deep, and weighs about 2 pounds.
The stated hazard is overheating that can lead to a fire. The commission says Merkury has received two reports of the fan catching fire when connected to a power source, and one of those incidents involved smoke damage to property. No injuries have been reported. The recall, numbered 26-539 and dated June 11, 2026, was handled as a Fast Track recall, a process in which a company works with the CPSC to announce a remedy quickly rather than going through a longer investigation.
Because the hazard involves an electrical fire, the risk is not limited to the person operating the device. A unit that ignites while plugged in and unattended can threaten an entire household, which is why regulators treat overheating consumer electronics as an urgent category even when the reported incident count is small.
Where the fans were sold and how to get a refund
The Hot + Cool fans were sold at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Sierra stores nationwide from October 2024 through October 2025 for about $30, according to the recall notice. The importer is listed as Merkury Innovations of New York, and the product was manufactured in China.
The remedy is a full refund, but it comes with specific destruction steps that are now standard for fire-hazard recalls. The CPSC instructs owners to stop using the fan immediately and contact Merkury Innovations. Consumers are asked to write the date, their initials, and the word “Recalled” on the product in permanent marker, then unplug and safely cut the cord and upload a photo of the destroyed unit to the company’s fan recall page. Once registration is confirmed, the company provides instructions on how to dispose of the product.
Those destruction requirements exist to make sure a recalled fire hazard does not end up resold at a thrift store or handed to another household. The commission’s broader message on any recalled heating device is the same: stop using it now rather than waiting to complete the paperwork, because continued use is what carries the risk.
How this fits a wider run of fan and heater recalls
The Merkury recall is one of several fan and heater actions the CPSC has taken in 2026, a cluster that underscores how common overheating failures are in low-cost climate-control gadgets. The commission’s own related-recall listings for this notice include Vornado’s recall of about 255,000 SRTH tower heaters over a fire hazard, among others. Different brands, different specific defects, but the same underlying failure mode: a device meant to move heat instead builds it up.
For readers, the practical lesson extends beyond this one model. Portable heaters and heating fans are among the household products most frequently tied to fires, and inexpensive imported units can carry design or component flaws that only surface once thousands are in use. Registering a product when you buy it, or periodically checking purchases against the CPSC’s recall database, is the most reliable way to learn if something in your home has been flagged.
What remains unknown is how many of the roughly 18,000 recalled Merkury units are still in circulation and whether the two reported fires represent the full extent of the problem or an early signal. As with most recalls of high-volume seasonal products, not every buyer will see the notice. Anyone who owns a Hot + Cool fan with model number MI-DHC02 should stop using it and begin the refund process, and any fire or smoke incident can be reported to the CPSC through SaferProducts.gov.
More from Morning Overview
- The NSA issues an urgent warning to all phone users about a setting most people leave on
- 5,000-year-old wolves on remote island upend domestication theory
- Scientists may have found a Type II civilization
- EPA finally kills ‘stupid feature’ in 60% of U.S. cars after 14 years of driver rage
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
