My clothes dryer stopped getting hot a few days ago. I took apart the back to discover which component had failed, expecting to find a bad heating element. Instead, I found that the thermal cutoff switch had burned and melted. The steel electrical connectors are fused, and there is carbon residue all over the part, and also covering the back of the dryer for about six inches above the part. There are 240V electrical wires very close to where this happened, and there is also lint on the housing of those wires.

The photo attachment function does not appear to be working. You can obtain the photo here:
http://bruteforcetech.com/misc/cutoff-tml_fire.jpg

This could have burned my house down and killed my family.