OMG I just had a small fire in my kitchen - hand hold please

[onebyonetheythenleft]

I put a pan on to heat up. turned around to see it smoking like crazy. The pan had nothing in it. I then put a small amount of oil in it but it continued to smoke like mad. I took it to the sink and the whoosh it went right up. Ran the water on it and it died straight away but OMG it has scared the shit out of me. How quick it took. Nothing damaged luckily, just the smell of smoke. Used a different pan to cook.

It has really scared me and shaken me up. How quickly it took and I was powerless.

Feeling quite tearful about it, I could have burned down the house.

I don't know why a dry pan did that ?

just need a hand hold x

I'm glad you didn't burn the house down. Hope you can have a relaxing evening that sounds like a scary experience.

I felt the same way when my toaster set alight ... scared the crap out of me. Glad your okay.

You used water to put out an oil fire?

i put a plastic box on the oven once, ate my breakfast, you guessed it!

melted

i have just also melted a lurpak packet, i was defrosting some canelloni beans in it, in the microwave
must be the time of year for kitchen disasters!

It’s because the oil turns into a vapour and if even the tiniest bit of liquid water touches it, the water boils instantly and explodes. Same thing happened to exdh. Lucky escape!!

Scary experiences like that are what makes us more vigilant. Or at least I hope it does.

We had guests round for lunch on Sunday. Suddenly DD pipes up "why is there smoke coming out of the bin?"

Turns out DH had swept up the ashes round the stove and put them in the bin (why FFS?).

I'm just grateful it was while we were all in the room and not just before bed.

On a side note, don't put water on an oil fire, put a fire blanket over it instead ( mental note where did I put the fire blanket?)

I panicked re the water on oil. The pan was in the sink. A tea towel on it would have seen the tea towel get alight too.

I feel so stupid and shaken

Yeah I set fire to a tea towel recently and picked it up and ran through the house to the back door to put it outside. Literally no idea why I did that when I could have put it in the sink and turned the tap on! We're getting an induction hob next year because I can't be trusted with a gas one and keep setting stuff on fire 😵

I'm buying a fire blanket

Oof..you've just reminded me to get the fire blanket out of the garage.

My mum was always setting fire to stuff in the kitchen - she'd put plastic things down on the electric hob. It used to terrify me when I was a kid!

You could just get a pan lid. Anything that stops the flow of air will extinguish the fire.

Glad you're ok. Fires can happen quickly. I keep a large container of salt to throw on stove fires. But you reminded me, I need to replace my fire extinguisher.

But why did a bone dry pan smoke so much then go up in flames BEFORE I put water on ?

The oil vapour reached ignition point. It’s a lot lower for oils than water.

The bone dry pan was smoking probably because of various residues left on the pan- when you added oil I’m guessing that it started smoking a lot more very quickly because the pan was already so hot.

Seems so. Do people not know not to do this??

How can people do such clueless things though? Seriously concerned about some of the things that I am reading. Plastic melts when exposed to high temps, news at 11.

For those who don't know, here is a demonstration of oil fire and water.

I'm glad you're OK OP. In the heat of the moment (no pun intended) I would probably have turned the tap on the pan as well.
I'm also buying a fire blanket thanks to this thread.

@ProvisionsOnTheDock the pan went up so quickly. It has really shocked me. I'm getting a blanket and home fire extinguisher

Buy a set of large lids. This is the quickest and easiest way. They are close by and accessible. Fire blanket and fire extinguisher are great if they are handy. If you have to rummage under the sink for them, you lose time.
An oil fire is scary. The crazy flames when you put the pan in the sink even more.
Before buying them, consider where you would put them. Blanket on the wall near the stove, great. Blanket in the pantry not so great.

Happened to me once. I wet a tea-towel, laid it over the pan, and extinguished the flames that way. I remembered what to do from the 1980s chip pan fire public service ads! Just a reminder for those who don’t have a fire blanket.

I hope you’re feeling better OP x

I don’t understand the panic. I genuinely don’t understand how you can panic, forget all sense and try and use water on an oil fire. I set fire to a pan when I was 15 and my mum wasn’t home. I just put a lid on it and took it off the heat. No panic, no running to the tap with an oil fire. I just don’t understand the panic when, let’s be honest, it’s a contained fire. You cover it and it goes out.

Lucky you! I think fire safety awareness is much less than it used to be-there definitely used to be adverts about chip pan fires when I was young and there aren’t any now.

@Thedm

because we're not all as perfect as you I guess.