Have You Ever Caught Fire in the Kitchen?

Not talking about self immolation here, rather, catching fire accidentally.

I don’t mind being a cautionary tale. It didn’t quite happen like Mrs Doubtfire, but close. The shirt I was wearing was a cheap, loosely woven t-shirt type of top. At no time did it come into contact with the gas flame. It just got hot enough to combust. When I saw myself in flames I panicked and took the shirt off over my head, throwing it on the kitchen floor. Luckily my hair or eyebrows didn’t catch fire. I put the flames out with my hands and the non burning part of the shirt. The rug, and part of the linoleum caught fire, but I got it out. The truly amazing thing is I didn’t get the slightest burn anywhere, not even on my hands. Needless to say, I take no chances any more, and turn off the flame whenever I have to reach. I also fully understand now why kids PJ’s have to be flame resistant.

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Glad that you were safe. Did this happened to you lately? Must be a shock.

Be careful though when wearing loose fitting clothes or wide sleeve when working in kitchen.

I’m lucky, never a fire.

Fire on a bus, RV, hotel, school cafeteria, music fest pit, high rise bldg in Tokyo, tent, restaurant in Morocco, pier in CA, and beer fest in Germany.

My tats cover several burns. Nothing worse than fire accidents.

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It was a few years ago, I just saved the shirt to keep in The Hall of Flame :upside_down_face:
I was pretty shaken up for a couple hours @naf.

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Oh wow, that’s a lot! Glad you’re alive to tell the tales @Rooster.

Luck was on my side and the people I was with but in order to deal with it, I don’t avoid flame cooking or pit bbq’s or fire in good situations because fear makes you react in a way that doesn’t help during a serious event.

Here is my setting self on fire story.

At a restaurant I use to own, I would do table side cooking. One dish in particular was affectionately nicknamed: “The flaming cheese-wheel of death”. This was a large parmesean cheese wheel that I would flambe" lobster & shrimp in a vodka sauce in. Long story short, at the end of the night when the wheel is “hot” the cheese would create little cheese droplets along the walls of the hollowed out bowl section and they would solidify that way when we put the wheel away in the walk in for the night. This means the next day the bowl wouldn’t be smooth and as you flambe the spoon would “skip” a bit and occasionally (frequently) it would splash some of the flaming liquid on my suit jacket.

Concentrating on the food, I wouldn’t always be aware I was on fire. So it wouldn’t be out of the norm for a customer to interrupt me and say; “excuse me, your suit sleeve / suit jacket” is on fire. I would look and quickly pat it out. Generally it was just the vodka and it would burn off and the clothing wouldn’t actually catch, but I did lose a couple suits to burn marks.

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Great story, what a visual.

Cheesewheel

A glimpse of me in action, sans being actually on fire.

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Yes, but it was someone else’s kitchen. It also involved me being chemically compromised and standing with my long frizzy hair very close to some candles.

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Oh come on!

You gotta go into a LOT more detail.

Probably needs its own thread. We’re waiting. :smile:

As to the OP’s query - No. Worst I’ve done is burned the garlic bread, beyond even the “scrape to desired doneness” stage.

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… and sans head. :mask:

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and a good one! Glad you weren’t hurt.

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It’s not solo thread worthy but all industry related. Since I’m in NJ stuck in a Storm turned power outage right now with my cell phone the only line open…

Music festivals, concert venues, tour buses, pre and post show setups, killing time btwn shows,suffice to say early on we (crew) were way to liberal. Today liability ins and lawyers cover predictable sins. Too old to tempt fate now. The things we used to blow off, lol…,

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No but I made a pretty good explosion once. I was covering some nuts in chocolate using a coating pan (think mini concrete mixer) and using freeze spray to keep them cold and solidify the chocolate. Next move was warming the pan with the propane torch to help smooth things out and boom! Freeze spray is highly flammable! :crazy_face: May have lost an eyelash or two but no permanent damage.

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Not in the kitchen, but outside, with a gas grill, not me who caught fire. Not ready to talk about it. :pensive: But everyone is fine.

I’ve certainly burned myself a number of times but actually lighting myself on fire? No. Some minor smouldering once.

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I used to teach cooking classes, some I developed and some were developed by the company. One Thanksgiving we had to prepare a sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. I was using a counter top oven. As I was working on something else I hear a loud scream. Needless to say the marshmallows were on fire. I calmly walked over to the oven, pulled out the plug and took the flaming dish out of the oven for everyone to see as if that’s what I intended. To be honest, we still ate the casserole and it was pretty darn tasty. And the oven was unharmed. I sold one of them that night.

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I didn’t dare light a match until I was about 20 yrs old. :expressionless: I dislike heat, and fire has always made me a little leary, so I’ve always been super-cautious around open flames. Those impressive, “light the alcohol in the pan on fire” cooking techniques? Not for me.

I’ve gotten a lot better so grills and a (well-contained) campfire or bonfire won’t freak me out now, but thankfully I’ve avoided catching fire. I have, uh…burned and had a roast or two catch fire, in the broiler! But that was taken care of easily by turning off the oven and keeping the door closed.

My two older sisters did light our rug on fire when we were kids…that probably did not help the phobia growing up.

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I always loved burnt marshmallows as a kid @MsBean, as did many of my friends and cousins. It must carry over to adulthood…hmm, now that’s an idea for a new ice cream flavor!

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