Posted By Faith and Family Books on January 29, 2010

I forgot to write about this the other day, but we had a fire. Albeit a small one, but nevertheless, a fire, just the same.

One of our children was checking the time on our stove clock, but accidentally pressed the button for  the self-cleaning feature. This turned it on, but that wasn’t a big deal because the oven was long overdue to be cleaned. We’ve only used the self-cleaning feature a handful of times since getting the new stove a couple of years ago, so we know that a certain amount of fumes and smoke are normal. That’s why we try to be out of the house when we turn on the self-cleaning feature. However, this time the smell got so bad that we hibernated upstairs with the door closed in our bedroom while I worked and the younger children amused themselves. The thing is the next time we opened the door the smoke was quite thick and the children’s eyes just watered. I just thought, “This isn’t right, we’ve gotta get out of here.” Bedlam let loose as I tried to get four children under 8 out of the house, while I got dressed and gathered my purse etc.

If it wasn’t so serious, this would be funny and I guess eventually we will see the humor of the situation. But if any of the neighbors saw, I can only imagine what they were thinking as my oldest son held open the door to let his siblings out, the two younger ones without shoes in the dusting of snow, none of them with jackets on and it’s 22 degrees outside. Once I made it down there, my mother heart just sank, but really what can I expect of a seven year old in charge of leading his siblings out to the van? I rushed to get them in the van because my son couldn’t get the key to work in the door. Thankfully one of the children had thought to bring out two blankets, which we quickly wrapped the two younger ones in to keep them warm while tucking them and their boots and shoes into the van.

Once I had everyone safely in the van I had to go lock the house, but Robert’s last words about checking the stove and possibly turning it off if the smoke was that bad kept ringing through my head. I am glad I went back into the house because I found that my good set of Pampered Chef oven mitts were smoldering on the back of the stove half burned! Yep, just imagine if I had left the house and they had burst into flame! I was able to toss them into the sink and turn off the oven cleaning.

You know that ovens give off heat through a little vent on the panel of the stove; well, that is what caught the oven mitts on fire because they were right up against where the back panel emits the heat.

We are incredibly thankful that the Lord kept us safe. When things like this happen, it is very hard not to think, “If only I had done such and such…..” Regardless, we are thankful the fire stayed contained and that I discovered it when I did. It was a little scary.

We drove down to Robert’s work and then stopped at Wendy’s for lunch. By the time we returned home, the house was smoke free, as we left the upstairs windows open, but today there is still that stinky burnt smell in the house. Even running our diffusers with essential oils is not taking the smell away as fast as we would like.

Again, just amazed and very thankful the fire was no worse. The Lord was very gracious to us.

Categories: January 2010
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