The Three Fires

The Three Fires

I was twenty-two or so when I had my first fire incident.  I lived in West Palm Beach in Fruity Acres.  By the end of my story, you will think I lived in the right place ;)   Robert and I were renting a home from a former Glades Central High school teacher named Robert Bennett.  He was one of the nicest people I have ever met, and was very understanding…I know from experience!

One night I decided to fry chicken for dinner, which was back in the day when I used Crisco in the can...and fried chicken with skin!  Well the can of grease was almost gone, so I turned on the stove and sat the Crisco can on it so it would melt and I could pour it in the skillet.  About that time Mr. Bennett knocked on the door.  I answered it and we stood there talking for a few minutes when James, who was about six years old, turned around and announced quite calmly that the kitchen was on fire.

He had been sitting in the living room floor watching cartoons, and we had a big aquarium sitting where James could see the reflection of the kitchen in the glass.  Note that when he made this announcement, he did not get up or stop watching his cartoon.  Mr. Bennett & I ran to the kitchen, and sure enough, the Crisco can was engulfed in flames.  Mr. Bennett grabbed a rug off of the kitchen floor and attempted to grab the can with the obvious intention of running back outside with it.

Good plan….poor implementation.  After he picked up the burning can, he lost his grip on it and it fell in the kitchen floor.  The flaming grease splashed out of the can and onto his cowboy boot.  The can went out pretty quickly after being removed from the heat and falling onto a flame retardant rug, but Mr. Bennett’s boot was burning quite nicely. 

He began to stomp around the kitchen in an attempt to put the fire out, which I must say to this day is one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed.  I thought about Dick Vandyke…you know….Stop, Drop & Roll.  Anyway after a lot of stomping and slapping at the boot, he finally extinguished it.  Needless to say, the boot was ruined.  He said he was glad that he was there and the only thing damaged was his boot…and the rug.  I apologized as straight faced as possible and offered to pay for the boots.  He took his rent money, but refused to let me pay for his boots.  I never melted grease like that again, but have laughed about this story for years  ;)

The second fire happened right after I had Bobby.  I was about 24….living in the same house with the same landlord.  I had bought a high chair from a consignment shop that was real wood.  I was stripping the old stain off of it so I could refinish it for Bobby.  The project was working out nicely and it was beautiful wood.  I had just finished putting polyurethane on it…..and I DID NOT know that Mineral Spirits could eat through plastic.  Therefore, after I had stained the highchair and put my first coat of polyurethane on it, I poured Mineral Spirits into a plastic glass and put my paint brushes in it to clean them.  I then placed the plastic glass on the range top until I needed it again.  I wanted to make sure it was up high so kids couldn’t get into it. 

The next morning I got up and fed the kids, cleaned the kitchen and started to sterilize Bobby’s bottles on the stove.  I turned the burner on high and was fiddling around making his formula when the entire stove whooshed into flames!  Flames were shooting up into the range top, which was also on fire since it was coated with flammable Mineral Spirits.

I freaked out and called 911 telling them my kitchen was on fire.  They asked who was in the house, and I told them myself and my two sons.  I was told to get both children and get out of the house; they were sending the fire department.  I hung up…then thought; if I leave that fire burning it is going to catch the kitchen cabinets on fire and burn up all of our stuff. 

So instead of listening to the dispatcher, and evacuating with the children, I grabbed a pitcher and filled it with water.  I proceeded to whoosh the stove with the water and the fire immediately went out.  I was shaking I was so scared, but I knew the danger was over.   I decided to call 911 back to cancel my order for a fire truck.  Apparently you can’t retract a request once it’s given to 911…help will show up in full force!

I heard the fire trucks long before they arrived; they were using sirens and blowing their air horns.  I was quite embarrassed knowing they were going to show up and NOT have a fire to fight….although there were plenty of signs left proving I DID have one.  The soot was all over the stove, range top & cabinets.  Water was everywhere too….which the Fire Chief got very upset about.  Apparently you are NOT supposed to throw water on an electrical fire.  I assumed you threw water on fire regardless of the cause.   The Chief ranted about how you could get electrocuted yada yada yada.

He then proceeded to find the source of the fire.  He found my plastic glass full of brushes sitting on the soot covered range top.  The mineral spirits had eaten the bottom out of the glass…I was amazed because I didn’t have a clue that it could eat plastic!    I blamed it on Robert since he wasn’t there to deny it, and you could tell this guy had still not gotten over me putting the fire out before his arrival!  I think he would have been pissed even if I beat it out with that flame retardant rug from the first fire. 

Then he said they had to do a report, which I was cool with until they wanted the owner of the home’s name.  They had to copy Mr. Bennett on the report!    I wasn’t sure how he would take it after the boot and all….but he still didn’t evict me.  He actually laughed about it.  I cleaned up the mess and painted the kitchen.  Mr. Bennett begged us to buy that house with owner financing when we decided to move to North Carolina.  Which leads into the third fire incident…they say things happen in threes.

After we moved to North Carolina I had promised James that I would get him another dog, because he was very mad at me for getting rid of his dog from Florida named Cody.  In my defense, the dog ATE cats…we were moving next door to a cow pasture.   I didn’t know what a cow would cost if Cody ate it, but I was not willing to find out. 

Anyway Donna and I took the kids to the Macon County Animal Shelter and adopted two puppies that ended up having Parvo and died within a couple of days.  Well, since we had paid for shots and spaying when we adopted the puppies the shelter let us pick out more animals.  So I got Boomer, who James would not accept as a Cody replacement, and Donna got a big gray Persian cat.  I named the dog as soon as I saw him, but Donna had not picked out a name for the cat when the third fire incident occurred.

We had been waiting to get our income tax refunds back because we really wanted to buy a new television.  I had started cooking some hotdogs for lunch, when someone brought the mail in and our refund checks were there.  In a rush we took off to go to town to cash the checks and to buy a TV.  We had just about made it to town when I remembered the hotdogs.  Donna turned around and we hurried back home to see if the house had burned down yet. 

You could hear the smoke detector screaming as soon as we got out of the car.  We ran inside and turned off the stove and ran outside with the hotdog ashes.  We opened up the windows and doors to let the smoke out when the poor cat made an appearance.  He was going HEEE  HEEE  HEEE.  Weirdest noise I ever heard a cat make, but I had never seen one dying from smoke inhalation.  Everyone started freaking out about the cat, but I started laughing.  I don’t mean giggling….I mean laughing with tears running down my face. 

Donna actually started to get mad at me.  But when I told her I could just see us going back to the shelter with this smoking cat to ask them to give us ANOTHER animal, she cracked up too.  She ended up naming the cat Smoky.  It was so appropriate; I mean besides the smoke he was gray.  Smoky and Boomer both lived very long lives….and that was almost the end of my kitchen adventures.

I did mess up my brand new stove in the house we built in Otto when I cooked tea bags until they ignited.  We won’t go there after the three adventures mentioned above, but I have used a real Tea Maker ever since. 

Karen White Williams