Australia

The actual quantities are pretty small

In pure, stable form, yes. A hundred or so grams released in my house won't be noticed or cause any problems.

But a few hundred grams of burnt fluorine hydrocarbons? 😬 That's a whole other story.

Most modern domestic fridges stick with a plain hydrocarbon refrigerant anyway (akin to butane) these days.

I'm yet to see R600a in Australian domestic fridges, I thought we were lagging in that department? Can you just get them at retailers now?

if you’ve got burning refrigerant there are much bigger problems going on seeing as the refrigerant circuit is hermetically sealed

Strong disagree xD Inhaling burning fluorine compounds > fridge not cooling any more

That kind of thing would also provoke a product safety recall.

I'm not diagnosing the most likely cause of a normal fridge failure, but considering some interesting causes that align with the unusual scenario depicted in the article. Don't panic, I'm not going to go all "fridge bad" on you.