Samsung washing machines have reportedly caught fire around Australia because of a water leak that can lead to electrical blazes.

Owners have been urged to contact Samsung as the company tries to recall more than 83,000 defective units in the nation’s homes.

Since the company issued a recall for the faulty appliances in April 2013 there have been 179 incidents, the company told Fairfax Media.

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There are fears the problem has been under-reported because emergency and fire services do not always take down the brand of machine that leads to electrical fires.

The 83,686 products out of 150,000 sold across Australia need to be serviced to fix the problem that can cause the electrical fires.

Fair Trading NSW told Fairfax Media that Samsung had made many genuine attempts to contact and warn customers of the fault.

They said such a large number of units remain unaccounted for because some users “may not be concerned by the recall announcements”.

“Some may not be aware that the recall applies to their appliance,” they said.

However effected customers say the recall process “sucks” and was “broken”.

If worried about your machine you should contact Samsung’s Product Safety Hotline on 1800 239 655 to organise a free home service. The affected models are:

SW75V9WIP/XSA
SW65V9WIP/XSA
SW70SPWIP/XSA
SW80SPWIP/XSA
WA85GWGIP/XSA
WA85GWWIP/XSA

#Corlette house #fire started by recalled #Samsung wsh’ing machine.18th in a year. #FRNSW http://t.co/aCi6M5kZDT pic.twitter.com/gmGZqjdm1F

— Fire & Rescue NSW (@FRNSW) May 21, 2015