grease fire

2 nights ago, september 11th of all days, i had the scariest night of my life.

joe had made french fries the day before and assured me it was very easy to make tho i've never fried anything before. he said to microwave the potatoes for five minutes, and to make the oil very hot, keep it on for like 5 minutes on before dropping the potatoes in.

so i turned up the heat and put on the lid (because that makes things heat up faster). the potatoes finished their 5 minutes in the microwave but the oil seemed unchanged (the pot has a glass lid). all the frying oil I've seen has been boiling so I thought to wait a bit longer. I was mixing my cookie dough (I'd measured everything out earlier) when i looked over at the stove and saw white smoke coming out of the pot.

i ran over and took the lid off. WHOOSH! a flame suddenly shot up several feet high out of the pot! I tried putting the lid back on but it didn't quite slide on correctly and there were still hella flames. I tried again and again but the flames were so high! there was SO MUCH smoke and I think at this point the fire alarm started to go off. our stove doesn't have a hood, and I was using the burner closest to the wall, so I thought to move the pot into our stainless steel sink which has a higher ceiling, and is further from the walls. I called 911 (first time ever I think!) and was crying (I think from the now black smoke) as I gave the wrong address, then corrected myself. by this time I finally got the pot in the sink, lid still only halfway on. the flames were so high! I thought we had a fire extinguisher under the sink (we don't, that's my parent's house). the dish towel I was using to protect my hands from the pot handles was catching fire so I grabbed the dog's pillow to use as an oven mitt. I grabbed another pot lid (thankfully two our pots have the same sized lid). and thought I was gotten it on correctly, but there was so much thick black smoke by that time I gave up. I ran to the door with Roux and got outside. 

I was only outside for a minute or two before the firefighters showed up. I rang the doorbells and banged on the doors of my fourplex neighbors but no one answered. I was so scared because my next door neighbor's car was in her usual handicapped spot in front of the house (mind you, she's also my landlord's mom so I really really scared I would accidentally kill her).

the firefighters came and I waved them down. by then I was pretty sure the fire was out. I didn't see flames anymore though the smoke was so black it was a hard to tell. a few of them went in and quickly came out, saying the fire was out. another set up a fan in front of our door to draw the smoke out.

they weren't here long. less than half and hour. they waited for the fan to do its thing, then they went in and double checked. they said there wasn't any damage. they were very nice, very understanding, and asked if anyone else was home, and any other pets, tho they didn't ask if I was hurt. strange because I was coughing a lot and my hand was actually in quite a bit of pain.

the neighbor above me showed up and we chatted a bit until the firefighters left and she went to move her car. I came back into the house; Roux did NOT want to, he was quite scared to come in and for the first hour he stayed near the door. eventually he came back to the sofa, but he stayed on the far side and did not go to his side, his kennel, or check on what I was doing in the kitchen. 

blah blah blah. it was scary. very scary. I think this was definitely the most scared I've ever been. in car accidents you think, it's just me and my car and that other driver and the car and cars are pretty fucking safe. when freaking out while snorkeling I KNOW it's mostly in my head. but this... oh man... I was very conscious that 6 people live in this building, 3 dogs, the neighboring buildings are pretty close, and there are major fires up and down the whole west coast right now. I was so scared I was going to start another fire, here in the city, burning down everyone's things, killing their pets because I couldn't make fucking french fries. 

all in all, it went as well as it could have. I did the right things after initially fucking up very badly. I only have a small first degree burn on my right hand (that actually hurt pretty badly for several hours. there wasn't any blistering or color changes but it hurt badly enough I thought it might possibly "become" a second degree burn. it didn't). the dog is fine, on his side of the sofa and in his bed. there was no damage to the apartment tho I did throw away the pot, the lid, the dish towel, and the kitchen mini-blinds. everything else is fine, even the sink, and the plastic soap dispenser above the sink. tho of course everything smells. smells bad. different, and I think worse, than a regular fire though I've never been terribly close to a wildfire so who knows. 

that night I tried cleaning some of the soot away and it smeared badly and I was worried we would have to repaint and we would lose our deposit. yesterday J and I did only some basic cleaning since we had to go down to SD for the day (my first real hangout since the pandemic started). but this morning we woke up, I googled some things, found some other cleaning products we already had, and guess what? the kitchen looks pretty good. it does look a bit grimy, but it's nothing serious. definitely don't need a paint job (until we move out anyway because we purposely didn't try to clean the walls or ceiling outside the kitchen knowing that it would make it look worse). but seriously, after about 5 hours of cleaning, it looks almost back to normal. I've never thought I'd had to clean a ceiling before; it's hard work.

anyway, lessons were learned. I do have a little bit of PTSD. I'm definitely never frying anything on my own again, we got a fire extinguisher (actually, g got us one because we all realized we should have one in the kitchen and she bought a two pack to share), I learned that I'm pretty good in a serious emergency, a little correct info about grease fires goes a long fucking way (un-introduce oxygen), and a little lack of information goes just as fucking far (don't turn stove way up when cooking oil!, don't cover oil when cooking!, don't open lids when there's smoke from oil!).