Question of the Day - Fire Safety

I've decided the question of the day is : When was the last time you were a.) glad you owned a fire extinquisher, b.) wished you owned a fire extinguisher or c.) wished you knew just for the life of you where in the world you had put the fire extinguisher when you moved into the new house? I'll be answering c.

A time I wished I had known where in the world our fire extinguisher was:

Before I go any further, it is important to note that my oldest son is extremely nervous about fire safety. Anytime they discuss it at school, we go through weeks of questioning about the smoke alarms (do they work, will I hear it, what if I don't hear it, etc.) So, we try to reassure him ("Honey, we're very careful, the house isn't going to catch fire. That's pretty rare. Yes, we check the smoke detectors often.") J. has even drawn out a fire safety plan for his Cub Scout project.

Well, not long after we had moved into this house, hubby was away for a meeting or drill or something (I don't remember) and I decided I would make pizza for dinner. I happily fixed the dough and popped it into the oven for 5 minutes. Then I took my pizza stone (Pampered Chef, of course) out of the oven, placed it on a pot holder on my counter (didn't want to scorch the new counters....) and put on the sauce, cheese and toppings. Then the pizza stone went back into the oven.

A few minutes later, I looked over at the stove. You know how one burner is open to the oven? Well, my teapot was on that burner and there was "steam" coming from under the teapot. I said, "Why is steam coming from under the teapot?" and picked it up. It wasn't steam. About that time the smoke detector in the kitchen went off, thereby setting off every other smoke alarm in the house. J. came running in to find me throwing open the oven door and smoke billowing out. I went running for the baking soda after turning the oven off and dumped the whole box on the flames. Then I got the smouldering mess out and realized that when I had put the pizza back in, I was wearing my oven mitt and didn't realize I had grabbed the pot holder under it, too. That's what caught fire.

The hardest part of the whole ordeal was having to stay extremely calm myself while frantically trying to get the fire out with the very loud smoke alarms blaring and blaring, because J. was watching with saucer-like eyes and getting more and more worried and throwing all kinds of questions at me. Needless to say, I did get the fire out, no one was hurt, but the smoke alarms blared for a while until I could get the house aired out. At it did wonders at setting back all our reassurances for J. But I think it helped him to know that there is NO WAY he could sleep through that racket and that I kept my cool and didn't panic. That's only by God's grace, too.

So, I'm still having a hard time getting all that baking soda out of the oven, but, thankfully, no one was hurt, and no real damage was done.