2013 started off with a bang. January 3 our oven caught fire! Luckily Matt is observant or it might have been worse. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner (it smelt so yummy and I couldn’t wait to devour it!) and Matt came in to tell me something. He noticed light in the oven and I told him that I had some foil in there and he was just seeing a reflection. Luckily he hardly ever listens to me, so he opened the oven. Sure enough a bright white flame was on the element. I grabbed the extinguisher and used it, which made the flames flare up! We slammed the oven shut, Matt called the fire department, and I took the boys outside. They were thrilled that a fire truck was coming to the house! By the time the firefighters arrived the fire was out, all they did was unplug the oven and told us not to use it. They told us we did the right things by keeping the oven closed and smothering the oven with the flame retardent. While the retardent didn’t work on the element, had the oven been messy (shockingly mine was clean) the grime would have caught fire and then spread to the cabinets.
In the end all we had to do was replace the oven, we found a newish one on craigslist and now all our appliances match. 🙂
Lesson: Keep your oven clean and never leave the house with the oven on or you could have a big fire.