scorched

Well, this happened yesterday. 

I was heating up some oil to fry something--actually I was going to make churros and hot chocolate for a book club activity that I planned for some ladies in the ward and it was gonna be delicious. (I did end up doing book club anyway. Only three people came. Maybe the universe told them the churro part wasn't gonna work out. But it was fun anyway and we had some good conversation. Also it was a nice distraction. I was a little traumatized by the events of the afternoon.)

The oil got too hot and started smoking. You can see the pan I was using sitting on the stove. It's a heavy cast iron dutch oven with a lid. I turned down the heat on the burner. (Mistake. I should have just turned it off completely.) Several seconds later, the smoke was getting much much worse. I decided to take off the lid. (Mistake. I should have left it covered.)

When the smoke got oxygen, the thing lit up in flames. I've seen oil do this before--in fact this happened in the very same pot on the same burner last week when the city was shut down for a snow day. (Mistake: I didn't think to avoid repeating the same conditions when I went to make the churros for the book club.) I was making a practice round of churros because I had never made them before. There wasn't as much oil in the pan last week, and it was small enough to be easily carried outside and chucked in the deepest snow this part of NC has seen for a few years. 

I don't usually deep fry, though. (Mistake: I didn't renew my knowledge of fire safety before engaging in this cooking activity that I'm inexperienced in.) So la dee dah, I didn't think much of it.

The next few minutes were scary. Cue adrenaline and all that. I tried to put the lid back on the pot, but the flame was too big and it slid right off. I couldn't use a hot pad and carry the pan outside as we had done before--the flame was too big. I think maybe a fire extinguisher crossed my mind briefly. (We have one and I knew where it was--just down the hall from the kitchen.) But I have never used one before, and I think I dismissed the thought because it didn't seem like a quick solution to me. (Mistake: I should have used the fire extinguisher.) So I thought water. (Mistake. Do not try water.) I filled up a container with water and tried to splash it on the flame. It just sputtered and grew, and some flames dropped onto the floor even. I even got a little scorched on my arm and forehead (just a slight skin irritation; it's gone now), so I was like,

"Wow, I just set my entire house on fire."

At that point, I decided it was beyond my ability to control. I ran upstairs and got the kids away from the computer. "WE GOTTA GET OUTSIDE!!" (They were watching a show, but I'm glad they understood the urgency in my voice. It takes a lot to pull S away from the TV) I grabbed my phone and called 911 on my way out

That was my first time calling 911. I was kind of upset and the dispatcher asked me all these lame questions like what kind of structure my house was and how many floors it had and all that, and I said something like, "Can you just give me advice on how to put this out?" He said no. "Don't do anything to put it out. The fire department is on the way." I thought that was dumb because, hello open flame. I wish he would've walked me through how to use the fire extinguisher or even asked if we had one (we have one, I just need some help to use it apparently), because I probably could've avoided some damage.

Who knows, though. While I was on the phone, I peeked back in and was relieved to see that the flame looked smaller, or like it may have even died completely. As I was on the phone, Tim pulled up. He told me later that he thought we came outside to greet him as he was getting home from work. I was on the phone with 911, though, and I told him there was a fire inside, and S. was holding his ears and smoke alarms were going off everywhere. (Oh, I guess they do work. Good to know. Last week they didn't seem affected by the failed deep-frying experiment.)

Tim looked at the flame, went upstairs to get a towel to smother it (Why did he grab one of our nicest towels? Men.), but by the time he came back downstairs, it had self-extinguished. Shortly after that the firefighters arrived. 

I tried hard to be invisible to the firefighters because I felt super dumb and I berated myself afterward for a good while for being retarded because I tend to be like that, but I've since seen that my stove is dumb and I'm grateful things weren't worse, and you know silver lining and stuff.