I was making dinner tonight, spaghetti and homemade sauce. Alex was helping me and we mixed the sauce, put it on the stove and then put the pot of water on to boil. Suddenly, Alex yells, "Mom!". I looked over and saw fire coming up from two of the dials on the cook top. I quickly turned off the two burners I was using, as the fire was coming out of the two I wasn't using. That didn't stop the fire, as a matter of fact, it got bigger. So I grabbed a large pot cover and put it on top of the dials to smother the fire. That didn't work, the fire just started coming out of the other two dials! Then I filled a pitcher with water and poured some of that on it. That didn't do anything, either. This all happened in less than a minute and I remember yelling for Alex to go get Jack. Alex must have set a record getting up the stairs and getting Jack because within a few seconds, Jack was in the kitchen with a fire extinguisher that he had in his room. I knew we had a fire extinguisher in the cabinet, but I had no clue how to use it or if it would still work because it is at least 8-12 years old. Thank goodness for Jack because he had the fire out in no time.
The funny thing is that while I was trying to put out the fire, in the back of my mind, I was thinking that I was so glad that the kitchen was clean and it wouldn't be embarrassing to have the firemen see it! I also thought that by the time the firemen got here, the kitchen would be pretty much engulfed in flames and they wouldn't even be able to tell that the kitchen was clean! Wow, I'm a real winner.
The other funny thing is that Shauna came into the kitchen while this was happening. She saw me filling the pitcher, which was one that still had a little diet strawberry drink in the bottom. I just dumped that out and added water, so the water was a little pink. Shauna told me after the fire was out that she thought I was mixing a pitcher of pink lemonade! Yes, that was my plan, I was going to serve it to the firemen while they stood around and praised me for my clean kitchen!
The fire extinguisher we inherited from Gramma S.
Hannah cannot stand it when a picture is taken without her in it, so here is the same fire extinguisher that saved our house from severe damage.
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