Do you believe in guardian angels? By the grace of God no one was hurt when our stove exploded on Friday afternoon.
Having gotten the bulk of my other work done during the week, I set aside Friday afternoon to get a good amount of cooing done. Besides that night’s dinner, I wanted to get a few extra things in the refrigerator and freezer for the days and the weeks ahead.
After seeing my middle child on to the afternoon Kindergarten bus, I turned on one of the electric burners on the stove (range) to get some homemade soup simmering. My youngest was happily playing upstairs, so I stole a minute to check on email in the family room.
Suddenly, I heard a loud Zzzzttzt sound followed by a pop. I looked over the the kitchen and saw molten sparks flying. I rushed to the kitchen, disoriented. The microwave was flashing, and I wondered if it shorted out. I saw sparks dancing on the floor. I turned around to see the stove on fire and yelled.
My little boy started coming down the stairs, so I shouted at him to stay on the landing by the front door as I took a moment to figure out what to do. The floor was no longer on fire, so I addressed the stove.
I shut off the burner and then rejected smothering the fire with a towel. Too mush risk that it too might catch on fire. Instead, I poured water on the flames. After two efforts, the fire was out. A smarter choice would have been to use the fire extinguisher, but it wasn’t handy, and I didn’t think of it (lesson learned).
I did another quick check back to the floor and under the pantry to make sure nothing else was on fire, checked on my son, grabbed the phone to call my husband (who didn’t answer) and ran down to the basement to shut off the circuit breaker to the stove.
After the breaker was turned off, I crawled on the kitchen floor to look for the shards of metal that came off of the coil and opened the front and back doors to air out the house.
Apparently, the coil on the stove had shorted out, causing the fire. This can happen when the coils get really old (our stove is older than my husband, who is older than I am). Looks like I won’t be doing much cooking with the stove for a while.
How to Protect Your Home While You’re Away