I had referred to my oven as "The Inferno" in a few prior posts. Though it had yet to flicker a flame, it had burnt many different foods into unrecognizable, black, rock hard crisps many, many times over, due to its finicky nature and undulating temperatures. It finally lived up to its name....yes - my oven burst into flames...with my cake for my first Wilton Course I class in it!!!!

The temp has been fluctuating on it for some time. It was at 325 when I put the cake in and checked the temp on the thermometer I have inside it...I checked it about 5 minutes later and the temp was down to about 260, so I turned it up by about 40 degrees. Just a few minutes later I see/smell smoke coming out from around the door...I open it to find the entire oven engulfed in flames, including the cake!! All I can figure is that when I turned up the temp that it just kept going up and the batter rose super fast and overflowed, eventually igniting!?! I immediately grabbed my canister of flour, threw off the lid and dumped it all in...the fire still blazed...so I grabbed a 5 lb bag of flour and dumped the whole thing in, for a total of about 8 lbs of flour...it still flickered away!!! lol I eventually got it out with a tea pitcher full of water. I was scared of using water first....seems someone once told me to use flour to put out an oven or grease fire, that water could damage the oven's element or something?? lol ummm....I think they were wrong...lol Wish I hadn't remembered them telling me that either, because I was left with a nice huge blob of flour 'dough' on the bottom of the oven, covering the element, plus globs stuck to the racks Meanwhile, my husband and boys are outside on the tractor, totally oblivious to the havoc taking place inside. After I put the fire out, I sat down at the table to think about the best way to go about cleaning the monstrous mess after the oven was cool. It was then that I remembered that only about 5 feet away from the oven, just inside the laundry room door, hangs a fire extenguisher on the wall!!!! lol

So what do you do when you only have about 4 hours before you have to be at class with a cake? You call the grocery store bakery and tell them your situation and beg the bakery manager to please, please, please sell you a plain cake...no filling, no frosting, no nothing on it! HAHAHA! They said they didn't want to do it, but would make an exception. When I got there to pick up the cake, I understood why they didn't really want to do it....the cake was still FROZEN in the middle!! lol Turns out the only thing they actually bake there are the breads/rolls.

This all happened on Monday...but it's only a string of bad events that happened to me that day...lol. If you'd like to read more of my adventures on Monday, I intend to post the rest of it in The Lounge....lol. If you've had or are having a bad day, I can guarantee that it will give you a laugh, or at least make you feel better about your day! lol

Oh wow! That's horible!
Funny, but horible! lol.
I've never heard to put out a fire with flour... obveously it doesn't work lol. But take comfort in knowing that the fire extinguisher would have made a huge mess too!
BTW... baking soda puts out fires... maybe the person who told you about the flour got them confused?? Oh well... it IS a great story!
Are you getting a new oven now? Or at least a new thermostat... my friend's oven was like yours (kinda. no flames though, lol) and all it needed was a new thermostat. Not to hard to put in even... I think. Good luck with future cakes... minus the flames!

Hey, JennT, way to go! I wouldn't have known what to do about a fire like that either...but if the oven had been giving me so much trouble before and now this...I'd have done something really drastic so it couldn't ever do it again!

One thing I did learn some time ago, if you have flour and water mixture, like pasta, let it dry out completely and it should be a lot easier to clean up (I learned this when I had a pasta machine, it all dries and flakes off easily).

My Monday was so calm compared to yours, it was almost unnoticable! Glad you didn't burn yourself and that the fire didn't go any further than the oven!
Janice

Hi JennT!

Sorry about your mistfortune with the oven. I do have one question....if the oven did that to you, why must you keep it? And if you are going to toss it, I wouldn't worry about the mess....just take it out as is.... I am just glad you were safe through all this!!!

If my oven blew up on me....I would have my husband unloading it to the curb.

I hated to laugh...but your descriptive post made it very amusing.

Hope your days have improved....

NOTE: Flour is actually quite flammable!!!!

In flour mills where there is a lot of flour dust in the air, there is a very high danger of it exploding!

Oh, JennT!!! I think it's time for a new oven! Just glad you are ok!!!

I am sooooo sorry but that is just too funny! I'm very glad everything turned out ok and you weren't hurt. I think if it had been me I would have left the mess in the oven and told hubby we had to go buy a new oven! Seriously!!!

Thanks, everyone! Yes...it is funny...I laughed about it yesterday. I must have looked like I was in an 'I Love Lucy' episode or something..lol.

I ended up leaving the mess and planned on cleaning it up somewhat on Tuesday. But when I got home from my Wilton class around 9 pm, my DH was just finishing it up!! Talk about happy...lol. He promptly received a super-passionate kiss from me! lol He vacummed it all out and then wiped it down...the inside looks brand new now. Too bad it won't be getting used...lol. I asked him why he did that for me...poor thing said 'Because I wanted you to be able to bake - you love doing it and I love eating what you make. And you had to deal with the fire by yourself, I didn't want you to have to do the clean-up too.' How sweet was that??!! Then I reminded him (very gently) that the oven had caught on fire!!! lol It took him a few seconds, but he realized that I would not be using the oven again....ever. HA! The only reason it's still in my kitchen is because the range works fine...and I have to be able to cook something until we replace it. We're trying to NOT spend any money on this house, since we're building a new one right now - but I can't wait that long to get a new oven! lol I think by tomorrow I'll be 'unable to cook anything' and we'll have to eat out or do take-out every night, cereal or instant oatmeal every morning, and sandwiches at lunch. I think this way I'll have a new one by the end of the weekend!!! lol At least, that's my plan....

is it possible to buy the one for the new house to use now and move to its permanent home later?

I just wanted you to see this (in case you are tempted to use it again):

OVEN FIRES
If anything catches fire in your microwave or convection oven, immediately close the oven door, turn the appliance off and unplug it, THEN CALL 911. Leaving the oven door open while frantically searching for a fire extinguisher will only allow more oxygen to feed the flames. Often once the oven door is closed, the fire will extinguish itself - however the Fire Department should still be called so that we can check for any fire extension. Don't use the appliance again until it has been serviced by a qualified technician.

We are all glad you are ok....and we hope next monday will be much better!

Would fire insurance cover the cost of a new oven for you?

I'd love to go ahead and get the oven we're planning to have in the new house, but it won't fit in this kitchen, and it's going to be gas and this house has no gas lines...sooo...lol....I'm planning on a Wolf or possibly KitchenAid, haven't quite pinned it down yet. We're just going to go to Lowe's on Saturday and get a relatively inexpensive one that can get me through until the house is finished. As far as the insurance goes, it wouldn't be worth it to file a claim, especially since nothing else was damaged. Plus we can get a new electric oven/range for less than our deductible. It's not a problem of $ but rather the time needed to just go and pick one out!! lol DH has been working on a $200,000 landscaping design for a condominium down on the beach...so he's been a little obsessed with that...lol It's our biggest job yet, for our company, and he's so nervous about screwing something up...so I've let the oven issue go to the 'back burner' so to say...lol

Here's the funny thing: if he goes with me on Saturday to pick out a new oven, we'll end up spending more $$ than if I went & picked one out on my own!!! HA! He wants me to have one that works the way I want it to...sweet. But I keep telling him no electric oven will live up to what I want...because I want more of a professional range/oven that's duel fuel. And I'm the one who hates the thought of spending more than a few hundred bucks on one when I know how much the better one's gonna cost for our house!! lol I told him that I'll be happy with one for now that turns on and stays at the temp I set it at and doesn't catch on fire...

acookieobsession - thanks for that info! Yeah - I did immediately turn it off, but the fire was already so big that if I didn't do something RIGHT THEN, other things would've been damaged. It was so big that just shutting the door wouldn't have done the trick, I don't think...lol. Plus, to unplug it, I would've had to get on my hands & knees, empty out an entire lower cabinet and then get halfway in it to reach the plug! How convenient is that? lol But I PROMISE that I won't be tempted to use it again! I put the extenguisher on the counter, just in case I was tempted, but it's been 4 days & I haven't even given it a thought...lol. Been kind of nice, actually, to not have to cook big meals. We've had lots of soup and spaghetti this week

Fry salt is also good for putting out grease fires... when I used to work at Burger King the grease catch pan in the broiler would sometimes catch on fire so fry salt works really god at putting out fires. (Fry salt is a very fine grain.)