It's Easy Being Green

Our night turned interesting rather quickly!  I ran home from work to have dinner with Talina like I do most weeknights.  We had just sat down to a meal of chicken and asparagus when she started smelling something weird, like a burning smell.  Like most guys, the smell didn’t hit me for a few more minutes after my better half already noticed it.  Concerned about the smell, I ventured into the kitchen to see what was going on, expecting that maybe a small bit of food was burning in the oven or the burner on the stove was left on.  I found neither.  In fact the stove and oven had been turned off for more than an hour but yet there was a thin, blue smoke pouring out of the vents on back of the unit.

The fumes were burning my eyes and lungs but I figured simply unplugging the cord that provides electricity to the igniters on the gas stove would solve the problem and get rid of the smoke.   A few minutes later, smoke was still wafting from the back of the stove and filling up the house.  At this point I decided it was out of my hands and called 911.  They told us to evacuate the house until the fire department arrived.  Luckily we didn’t have to stand in the snow and cold for very long because the firehouse is right around the corner from our house!

The firemen were perplexed but decided to shut off the gas and haul the still billowing stove out into the snow in our backyard.  They used their nifty infrared heat device to figure out what was burning inside and began methodically taking the stove apart to work their way into the internal components.  Inside, the firemen found that one of the igniter wires for the burner had arched with another piece of metal or wire and started the insulation burning.  A few handfuls of snow and a couple cups of water later, they deemed the fire officially out.  Whew!  We dodged the big bullet on that one.  There was no damage to the house but it wreaks of electrical fire now and we’re without a stove.  Now we’ll have to get in touch with the property management company to get us a new one.  What fun!

Talina posted some pictures of the mayhem on her blog.  Check it out!

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