Two nights ago we had to call 911 because our oven caught on fire and we couldn't put it out. I was baking a pizza and heard a zap noise in the kitchen. I looked in the oven an there was a white hot light on the heating element and it started to shoot sparks out. My dad came over and turned the oven off, but sparks continued to fly. He put baking soda on the part that was sparking, but it just started to spark in another location. We called the next city's fire dept. non-emergency number (we couldn't find our city's number), but they told us to call 911. 911 told us to leave the house and wait for the firefighters to come.
In about 5 to 10 minutes they arrived and stopped the oven from sparking. I don't know how they did it, but it was pretty quick. Standing outside waiting for the firefighters to come was a pretty unnerving experience. I didn't think the oven would do anything worse that shoot sparks in its inside, but I didn't want to leave the house and stand helplessly outside. The thought of leaving the oven to run its course, possibly taking the whole house with it, consumed my thoughts as I heard the sirens getting closer.
We were lucky that there was hardly any damage, just a oven heating element to replace. The thought of losing everything still lingers in my mind. All I grabbed was my coat and cat (in carrier). Other than that I would've been left with nothing had the fire/sparks ignited the entire place. But that did not happen. The new heating element is in the mail, and we'll probably get a new fire extinguisher (we didn't use the one we had, it was expired anyways).
