I almost burnt down my apartment!

[pavlovthecat]

Oh my god, it was terrifying, I am so stupid, I put my family at risk.

I spent all day ripping out old mouldy sealant on my bath and resealing it. Our bathroom looked fab, fab, fab.

DH and I had a romantic bath with candles and wine. Lovely. I removed all the candles to the front room as we retired for romantic cheese and biscuits and a film. DD woke and I gave her milk and walked past the bathroom and there was nothing untoward there (lights all off).

15 mins later out smoke alarm went off, I rushed into the hall to see flashing light from the bathroom - walked in to find the plastic window sill on fire, wicker pots smoldering and lumps of plastic dropping onto the bath. The flames were quite big and the fumes were horrendous.

I had a petal hanging t-light holder, morrocan style, hanging from the ceiling, by the plants, over the sill. It has never been used, maybe once. It is lovely and was for decoration as it looked nice. I thought it was a good idea to use it, and it did look fab. But, when I moved the candles out, I did not blow it out, I forgot about it.

The damage is not too bad - the entire window sill (very long, and part of the double glazed window) bath needs replacing, the wall above window and the ceiling needs replainting. I think we will be covered by the insurance, probably a few hundred pounds of work. DH joked how typical it was that it happened after I had spent all day doing the bath, as it will all get ripped out and replaced now anyway.

But, I do not care about that. I care about the fact that I could have killed my family. If the alarm had not gone off (you know, maybe the batteries did not work/it was faulty or something), we would not have known until th fire was completly underway and we could have lost everything, not least our health.

I know I am being melodramatic, but it really freaked me out. DH said it was an accident and we did have a smoke alarm and that is why we have it, it did its job, no harm done. But, it made me realise how we do things every day that is risking our lives. It would have been so easy to lose everything by not being careful .

Oh Pavlov how terrifying

How did the tealight holder set fire to the windowsill? I can't work that bit out.

Flight - i reall do not know - it was metal, with plastic beads running all around ot. Hard to explain - like a lantern that hangs from the ceiling with the beads on the outside, tea light in a metal holder on the inside. All I can think of is that maybe a bead fell onto the tealight? I cant see how else, or a spark? (but plastic is not easy to set light to is it, not like a wood splint for example with a spark)..As the whole of the lantern was alight, the plastic was dripping onto the plastic of the sill, the flames went upwards which is why the wall and ceiling got burnt, and then downwards as the plastic dripped.

It was frightening. It reality it was out within seconds. I yelled for DH in a panic, he came in picked up a towel, wet it, chucked it over the flames, pulled the lantern into the bath. The initial feeling though when I saw the flickering of the flames inside the room was one of immense fear, when it was not I guess that bad.

Gosh you have a quick thinking partner there. Well done both of you.

I imagine that the plastic beads got rather too hot, started to melt, maybe just spontaneously started to burn or else maybe it melted onto the flame which set it off.

I have got one of those which is a table lamp style with a glass candle pot in the middle. I haven't ever used it and prob won't now!!! So thankyou for the warning!

I'm so glad you are safe and your house isn't too badly damaged. What a PITA about the bath though after all your work.

I'm going to get some proper smoke alarms and fit them I think - haven't bothered so far as we live in a flat, but I wouldn't smell smoke from the bedroom if the kitchen say was on fire.

Try not to worry. You've had a shock and all the right measures were in place to ensure nothing worse happened.

Well done xx

You poor things.

Try and take it easy for the next couple of days, look after yourself, you have had a terrible shock, but thankfully what a relief all of you were safe.

I once caught our bedroom windowsill smouldering, thankfully I was home early as I had an antenatal appt. Normally speaking I would have been at work and even though the alarm would have gone off no one would have been here to hear it. No idea how our mini fire started, the room did get a lot of direct sun and I think it may somehow have caught a mirror.

Flight - we live in a flat too. I did not smell it (in particular I have really bad sense of smell anyway) while we were sat in our front room. In fact, to be honest, it smelled more after it was put out. if our alarm did not go off, our exits would have been blocked, as the bathroom is near the top of the stairs - we live in a victorian conversion so the top of the stairs, bathroom to the right, kitchen ahead with access to gardeb, living/sleeping along the landing. We would have had to have jumped out of the windows. DH said it would have been fine as he would have gone first and caught DD {we talked about it, as I was so panicky about how we would have done it, said we need to think about this, in case it ever happened in the future, maybe this was a 'test' to ensure we pay more attention to these kinds of things and not presume it wont ever happen to us.

You must get an alarm - they are really cheap. Ours is a battery one, which makes a horrendous beep when the batteries start to run down, and it does not let up until you change them.

Gosh.

Yes I think one needs to go over these things afterwards to settle the mind.

Although we are ground floor, most of our windows are painted shut, so would have to break glass to get out if the doors were blocked.

I might get the fire brigade people round to tell us where to put an alarm though, as I can nevr understand the instructions properly for positioning, either that or they go off when I am cooking!

Oh Pavlov, what a nightmare. Be very kind to yourself for the rest of the day, the shock will catch up with you when you aren't expecting it (I speak from experience) It's great that you have the smoke alarm, if you don't already have spare batteries for it, get some tomorrow then you'll know you can change them as soon as you need to when it runs out. It was just and accident and in a weird way things like that are a good thing because no-one was hurt but you will be SO careful from now on it is extremely unlikely anything like that will ever happen again.

Although, on a more humorous note, I did muse over the fact, that had I been required to jump out of the window I was wearing a neglige that would not have left much to the imagination! Would have been a bit cold and given the neighbours something to talk about

Candles freak me out tbh and I won't have them in the house

Hope you are OK pavlov

Thank you Podrick and everyone - I am fine, just freaked out.

I love candles, have always used them. I am usually really sensible. I do not leave them on in a room I am not in (I do to go to the loo, or to make a quick cuppa, but not for any length of time). I never put them on when DD is around, they only go on at night time once she is asleep. They have proper holders - most of them are within a secure space such as a large piece of rose quartz or salt rock, and some glass lanterns with nothing near them. I blow them out way before I consider retiring to bed, and NEVER have them on in the bedroom in case I fall asleep. I don't usually use the hanging lanterns that I have, but looked at this in my nice new bathroom and thought, oh that would be pretty - and it was - light flickered through the beads and it was gorgeous, but as I am not used to using it, I did not remember - all the other lights were moved into the front room once we finished in the bath.

DH does not like candles much - he likes the effect, but worries about fire.

lol at the negligee!!

We're not allowed candles as part of our tenancy agreement but I look forward to using them occasionally. Just have to watch it! I've always had a phobia of fire, used to hide under the table when birthday candles were lit etc etc...not so bad now but still don't trust myself iyswim.

I think candles are fine if you are careful, they are so romantic and relaxing. BUT clearly i was not careful. I tried something I would not normally do. Thats often when things go wrong isnt it? Caught off guard.

I will now only stick with the ones I always use, the way I always use them. I have never had a near miss before, not even a little bit of one, so clearly doing things on a whim is the problem.

My poor bath. It took me hours. absolutely hours.