DVR Fiasco - Where There's Smoke - Fire ?

[Hagar]

A heads up for y'all.  Wife and I sitting here watching TV (Direct) last night.  Suddenly, screen goes blank.  Wife ask what happened?  I looked down and DVR was off, so she hit the button on remote to turn it back on - nothing.  She gets up and opens glass door to cabinet where it sets, and it was smoking.  We got it unplugged and disconnected.  Called Direct TV & they're sending another one.

Here's the problem.  What if we'd been gone, and recording something?  I wonder if it would've caught on fire?  Ironically, we've lived out here about 6 years now, and (thank goodness) there have been very few home fires.  But this year in Evadale, we just had our third one, and my daughter walked over when she got home and we were talking about the rash of fires - then this happened.  Really weird.  Unfortunately, there's not a lot any of us can do about it.  We'll still record programs when we're not here.  Perhaps put the new one on a metal tray, and remove and papers, or any other combustibles around it.  Just another thing to look out for.