Faulty white goods such as washing machines, tumble dryers and fridge freezers cause at least 60 house fires a week, according to a new study.

Through Freedom of Information requests, consumer group Which? found the number of fires has not really changed in the last five years.

The results show that malfunctioning kitchen appliances reportedly caused close to 16,000 potentially deadly fires across the UK since 2012.

Since the tragedy of Grenfell Tower being started by a fridge freezer, critical questions have been raised about the safety of millions of household products.

Which? thinks the government should be doing a lot more to prevent potentially dangerous goods out of people’s homes.

The consumer champion has this week written to ministers giving them 90 days to publish an action plan for the new Office for Product Safety and Standards, launched last month.

The plan must include the action that the office will take to remove the remaining one million fire-risk Whirlpool tumble dryers from people’s homes.

The move forms part of Which?’s campaign to ‘End Dangerous Products’, calling for fundamental reform of the UK’s antiquated product safety regime to keep dangerous products out of our homes.

The analysis shows that faulty washing machines and tumble dryers are the reason for more than a third of fires, followed by ovens, dishwashers and fridges.

Hotpoint dishwashers were linked to more than a third of dishwasher fires, Indesit was linked to 10 per cent.

Hotpoint was back in the results as its freezers and fridge freezers were linked to nearly one in five refrigeration fires.

Which? is concerned that without stronger national action to keep dangerous products out of our homes, the situation will get worse when the UK leaves the EU.

Peter Vicary-Smith, Which? CEO, said: “It’s shocking that there are more than 60 house fires every week in the UK because of faulty appliances. ?People will undoubtedly be worried to hear our findings that some of the most common household appliances represent a disproportionate risk of causing a fire due to being faulty.

“The government must now publish an action plan for the Office of Product Safety and Standards in the next 90 days, setting out what it will do to keep dangerous products out of consumers’ homes and ?tackle Britain’s broken ?product safety regim?e?.”

A spokesman from Whirlpool said: “These claims are based on unreliable and inaccurate data.

“The government has advised that the accuracy of fire and rescue service incident data cannot be guaranteed and should not be relied upon to make judgements about particular appliance makes or models."