Fire in Self Cleaning Oven on Easter Sunday

I had a terrific Easter weekend. It started with our regular monthly Deaf Cafe, Flint program on Saturday night. We had a Bible time Jerusalem theme. ALL the team members wore Bible time costumes. We had the usual dramas, songs, videos during the first half of the program. During the second half, we served Bible time food such as hummas, feta cheese, nuts, dried fruit, raisins, grapes, oranges, apples, olives, olive oil, honey and pita bread. It was wonderful meal. While eating, we showed part of the "Jesus" movie. The program ended with a short devotion. We decorated the room with props that made it looks like Jerusalem. We had drop cloths on the walls that were painted to look like stone. One of one members made two palm trees and more walls and gates from cardboard. It was one of the best Deaf Cafe programs we have done in 5 years.

Sunday we went to Deaf Church at Cornerstone where John, my husband, taught Sunday School and then preached in ASL. We had a very large group which was great! After church, we had two families over to our house for the traditional Easter meal of ham, etc. My husband did most of the cooking with Kirstan contributing her ozo salad (yummy). The food was terrific. I'm still stuffed! We spend the afternoon just sitting around the table chatting. It was a great day of being with good friends and knowing that Christ is alive!

However...the day almost ended in tragedy. My husband had gone back to church but I decided to stay home and clean up the kitchen. That's my job.. he cooks and I clean up. I started washing the dishes and I noticed that the oven got dirty so I decided to run the self-clean cycle. I then continued washing the dishes. I finished that and something made me turn around to check the oven and there was a fire inside it! It was shooting flames about 10" high in the middle where the crusted over food was. I did panic. My first thought was to open the door - which didn't work as it automatically locks when set for cleaning and it will not open until it cools down. I pushed all the buttons to turn off the cycle and that was successful. I must have screamed as my two teenagers came running to the kitchen. My 16 yr old is holding his phone saying... I'm going to call 911! I tell him to wait... as I could see the flames were getting smaller.. and smaller.. and smaller and finally it burnt itself out. big breath! This all happened in about 2 minutes.

It was another hour before the oven cooled down enough to unlock itself. I realized that it was the sugar glaze from the ham that set off the fire. I made the mistake of not cleaning up that mess BEFORE I set the cleaning cycle. I had used that feature many times over the years and never had a fire before. I don't know if I will use that feature again. I think I'm scared to now. But I praise my Lord for taking care of us and for patting down that fire. I praise the Lord that I was NOT successful at opening the door as that probably would have made it much worse feeding it oxygen. I praise the Lord that I was at HOME and had not left the house!

So.. please take this as a warning. If you use the self-cleaning feature on your stove, please make sure there are no grease or sugar drippings on the bottom that could catch fire. Make sure you are HOME. Never leave the house while this cycle is running. Most of all, make sure your smoke detectors are operating. I didn't have any smoke so my alarms did not go off.