Disaster Plan Reality Check - The Toaster Oven Fire
December 9, 2011
by Jodi Granok - Organizing Magic, LLC
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So here I am, 2 months into our disaster preparedness planning, and I had a disaster. I was not prepared.
This is my embarrassing tale:
I had leftover take-out food that I wanted to reheat - a sandwich and homemade chips. I put them in the toaster oven on 350 degrees for what I thought would be a few minutes. I got wrapped up in some business paperwork on my computer in the next room, when I smelled what I thought was my lunch, burning. As I approached the kitchen, expecting my lunch to be a bit crispier than I had planned, I was surprised (and not in a good way) to find that my chips were on fire, inside the toaster oven.
The first thing I did was unplug the toaster oven. This meant there would be no more heat encouraging the fire within the oven. Unfortunately, the chips were still ablaze with no signs of stopping. So I called 911.
You may ask, "Why on earth did you call 911?" Well, here are the steps I ran through my head:
1) I did not want to open the lid and pour water on the fire, because the toaster oven is situated on a shelf with other shelves above it. On the shelf above were several bottles of alcohol and several cookbooks. I was afraid that by opening the lid, the flames would leap up and catch those items on fire.
2) I did not want to pick up the toaster oven and carry it outside to douse it with a garden hose, because I was afraid that the toaster oven would be too hot to handle with ordinary oven mitts. If I dropped the toaster oven because it was too hot, the lid could open and again, I could spread the fire.
3) We did not have a fire extinguisher in the home (I KNOW - but would you believe that is not listed in the disaster shopping assignments until Week 13???) - and even if we did, I was again afraid of opening the lid for even a moment and risking the flames igniting the alcohol bottles.
So I called 911 and began to run from the front door, looking in vain for the fire truck, and back to the kitchen, watching my food continue to burn, to make sure the fire was still contained within the toaster oven.
By this time, the kitchen and now the living room were filling with an acrid smelling smoke, and the fire alarm had gone off. I was sick of hearing the automated woman's voice saying, "Fire! Fire! Fire!", so I called 911 a SECOND time to ask what was happening. At this point, help arrived.
Of course, the firemen calmly carried the toaster oven outside to my driveway - using very heavy fireproof gloves that I did not have - and poured water on the fire. After some friendly ribbing, they left. I was left with a horrible smell in my house, a burning sensation in my throat, a frightened cat, no toaster oven, and no lunch. Did I mention that I had 15 minutes before leaving to see a client?
My husband was very helpful, coming home from work early to help air out the house, clean up the kitchen shelves (there were little burnt wisps of I don't know what clinging to the shelving unit), and purchase a new toaster oven.
He also took a photo of the remains of our first toaster oven, as well as our brand new toaster oven.
After this, we decided to buy the fire extinguisher earlier than planned - and it is now sitting on our kitchen counter.
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| Our "beyond toasted" toaster oven |
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| Our new toaster oven |
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