As Billy Joel famously sang, “We didn’t start the fire! It was always burning since the world’s been turning!” But occasionally, someone actually does start a fire after making a mindless mistake. And the consequence might be losing their home…
Firefighters on Reddit have been recalling the most ridiculous ways they’ve ever seen people start house fires, so we’ve gathered some of their facepalm-worthy stories below. We all know that it’s important to blow out candles before going to sleep or leaving the house, but apparently, that’s far from the only mistake you can make around fire. So enjoy scrolling through this list, and be sure to upvote the tales that make you want to invest in one more fire extinguisher, just in case!
#1
A roomba knocked a scented candle over and set fire to the rest of the room. The guy said he knew the roomba did it because he watched the whole thing happen, but didn’t do anything because he thought it was funny.
Image source: anon, gpointstudio
#2
My neighbors recently burned their house down emptying an ashtray before they went to bed.
They have since quit smoking.
Image source: DootDotDittyOtt, EyeEm
#3
My Dad was a firefighter, and he once went to a house fire that was started by the old lady who lived there. She liked to burn candles, but didn’t like the wax buildup that would form in the cavity, so she would soak up the liquid wax with a napkin. She was doing this when she accidentally brushed a wax soaked napkin up against the flame. She panicked and threw the napkin into the trash . . . where all the other wax napkins were. As the trashcan exploded into flames she fled the house, but not before she went to her oxygen tanks and FLOODED THE HOUSE WITH PURE OXYGEN, because she thought that it would smother the fire.
Image source: corvettee01, yanadjana
#4
I worked for a restoration company. A family cut a small tree down and tried to stuff it up their fireplace to burn. The flute was so crammed with leaves that smoke started to fill the living room. They tried to pull the tree out and that’s when it REALLY caught fire. They tried to pull it out of the house, they got as far as the front door. All of them had 2nd/3rd degree burns on their hands/arms and the fire destroyed the front room and entry way of their house. The insurance company asked us if we thought it was a case of fraud, and we told them “No these people are just really stupid”.
Image source: brianh71, freepik
#5
I *am* a firefighter but this wasn’t in my district. A guy was attempting to forge a sword in a burn barrel in an alley, based on something he watched on the History Channel. The embers from the “forge” lit up the building he lived in and destroyed 3 multi family residential buildings.
Image source: snufalufalgus, EyeEm
#6
My father was a Boston Firefighter for 30+ years. One of his more memorable stories was a foreign family who had ripped up their cast iron bathtub, and built an open flame underneath the tub. They used the tub as a giant oil fryer.
Naturally this didn’t work out very well and the house caught fire.
To add to the insanity even more, the family absolutely refused to let my dad and his coworkers in without taking their boots off. Which of course, they couldn’t agree too.
Just crazy.
Image source: two-stumps, freepik
#7
In college a girl in the dorms was making popcorn which (not sure how but somehow) caught fire in the microwave. She didn’t want to get into trouble for it so she grabbed the flaming bag of popcorn and threw it into the nearby trashcan. Then proceeded to *cover the fire with paper towels* to “smother” it. She actually thought it would work.
It did not work. I came back exhausted after work to find the dorm building surrounded by firetrucks.
Image source: HatchlingChibi, freepik
#8
This happened this past fall, but a family had a “fairy house” that was outside, right next to their wood sides house. The fairy house was made out of an old tree, and had a bunch of decorations in it, including incense candles. One evening, they decided that they would light the candles for the fairy’s, which then caught the tree on fire, which then extended into the house. Since it started on the outside, it ran up the side of the house and got into the attic and second floor. The family was home, but in the first floor while this was happening, it wasn’t until someone driving on the road saw the smoke and went to alert the family. Luckily, we were able to save the structure, there was a bit of damage to the roof, attic and second floor, but the homeowners are rebuilding those areas.
Image source: Skimanmike, partystock
#9
Not a firefighter but happened in my building. In india generally you have small praying place in your house, like a little version of a temple. You lit Diya (lamp) everyday and pray there. In this particular case the family Decided to keep this thing on a fukin refrigerator. The diya fell behind the fridge due to wind from the window adjacent to it . the condenser caught fire and literally exploded. The whole floor was on fire. Luckily no one was home. It really was a dumb decision to keep a temple on a fukin Fridge.
#10
Forgetting to close the bottom of your grill then going overboard with the lighter fluid.
Image source: mgentry999, serhii_bobyk
#11
Not a firefighter, but I set my parents bathroom on fire while getting up from the toilet.
My mom used to leave potpourri simmering in a small bowl on the back of the toilet with a candle to heat / stew it just below. As I was getting up I somehow knocked the apparatus off the back of the commode. We had carpet floors in that bathroom and that section of the floor caught pretty quickly. The fire then found a seam in the wallpaper, and ignited the glue fairly easily as well. As the flames rose, it caught the roll of toilet paper on the way up the wall which really accelerated things. All this took
The aftermath was surprisingly minimal. The small section of carpet was destroyed (but my parents replaced the carpet everywhere a few years later), the wallpaper wiped clean with some hot water and a rag, and thankfully there was only a little permanent smoke damaged on the ceiling which has seemed to fade over time.
Image source: atlienk, zinkevych
#12
Family friend decided to make major renovations on their home with no background in construction/carpentry. They also didn’t bring a professional to ensure that their renovations were up to fire code. Low and behold an exposed wire sparked a fire in the middle of the night and burned down their entire home. They have 3 kids and are very fortunate they all were able to escape the fire without any injuries. To make matters even worse, they had no house insurance (extreme libertarians that don’t believe in insurance/debt) so they ended up having to rely on a GoFundMe fundraiser (set up by a relative) to recover financially. Last I heard, they were still living in a hotel trying to figure out their next plan of action.
This story alone reaffirms my belief that somethings are better left to the professionals. Even if you’re trying to cut costs, it might be best to pay a little extra to have someone with experience do something for you instead. This avoids terrible situations like this.
Image source: anon, pvproductions
#13
My partner’s a firefighter.
He said the dumbest one was where a man tried to barbecue in his basement.
His reasoning?
“I don’t want to go outside and risk exposure to Coronavirus. It would be safer to do it here in the basement.”.
Image source: DarthInvadeHim, kues1
#14
Was in my local paper, turned out to be my friends older brother. He tried to smoke out bees in the loft and set fire to the insulation in the loft and burnt the whole house down.
Image source: anon, Getty Images
#15
Someone tried to make a gummy bear lamp like in iCarly to test it really gonna burn.. and then … His house was on fire.
#16
Mid-eighties, near beginning of my career. Young lady finished putting flea spray on her pupper, when she noticed a tick embedded in it’s flank.
Ever hear of the tick removal technique in which you blow out a match and touch the hot tip to the tick, thereby causing it to back out of the dog? Yeah. Dog caught on fire.
Little fellow ran under the bed, which also caught fire. Lady grabbed the pup with spray-wet hands, and they too caught on fire.
Long story short, the house was a mess, but both the lady and the dog fortunately survived with moderate burns.
There was also the lady who tried to sanitize her panties in the microwave, but I was off that day.
Image source: NarcanPusher, EyeEm
#17
Haha great stories guys but nothing will top this. Kitchen fire lady out front screaming we go in see fire coming from weird areas in cabinets, like how is it in these cabinets? They aren’t near stove, electrical nothing. Put fire out nothing major station was close to house so we were quick. I’m the Lt. asking questions about fire from homeowner. She has no clue how it started. I prod further as to why these cabinets in a weird area where nothing is were burning. She says I put my oven mitt away in that cabinet in corner….it was on fire when I put it there could that be it? Yes you read that right. She caught her oven mitt on fire and put it away….still on fire. She didn’t see the problem.
Image source: Fire17Fighter, freepik
#18
Not a firefighter, but a guy in our dorm set the kitchen on fire when he tried to make a grilled cheese by assembling the sandwich then jamming the whole thing into a toaster and passing out.
Image source: Rennarjen, sachinthaetsy
#19
Not a firefighter, however I was an insurance agent for ten years and I have two to share:
Client was an elderly, mental handicapped woman. She burned her apartment building down. Apparently she was a bit of a hoarder and she filled the top shelf of her bedroom closet with old newspapers. At some point she put one of her wigs on top of the newspaper pile, right underneath the bulb. Or more accurately touching the bulb. Add that to the fact she never turn her closet light off, and there you go. Whole building gone, no one hurt though.
Second one was a gentleman who was making a huge batch of chili. He had it simmering on the stove, went out to mow the lawn. Somehow it boiled over and started a fire in between the walls in the kitchen. Burned half the house down, again no one was hurt.
#20
College dorm kids reheating a pizza on the oven…still inside the cardboard box.
Image source: JShredz, tabitha turner
#21
In the city of Colorad Springs, the local news did a fluff piece about candle safety near Christmas. After they were done filming , the store owner that they were filming in took the crew out to breakfast. She didn’t put out the candles, and burned several shops to the ground. The film crew was there to film her breakdown when they realised what caused the fire.
Image source: bananainmyminion, colnihko
#22
A fairly common one, but the response was interesting!
Early February, Western PA. Guy’s pipes freeze on the coldest day of the year, -8F.
He tries to thaw them with a propane torch. Sets the wall on fire.
Tries to put the fire out. Fails. Finally calls 911.
Fire Chief is 1/2 block away. Is on-scene in under a minute. Basement is fully involved, main floor catching.
First engine arrives in under 5 minutes. Doors are blocked by fire, exterior attack only.
I’m on an attack line, spraying water into the 2nd-floor window. After 40 minutes, another firefighter comes to relieve me, but since I’d been getting backspray, I’m frozen to the ground. He has to pull me loose.
2 hours later, we have it knocked down. The insurance adjuster shows up. Asst. Chief explains what started the fire.
Adjuster replies, “Oh, yeah, we know. It’s OK, we insure for Stupid!”
(Nobody got hurt. Family gets a much nicer house out of the deal.).
Image source: Jef_Wheaton, leivmg
#23
I was a chef before I was on a volunteer fire department for a bit and this was at a restaurant down the street from my old one. Cooks at this restaurant forgot to plug the drain in the deep fryer. So what happened was they put oil in a fryer, which drained immediately, right before lunch, turned on the empty fryer, and that’s when the coils caught fire. So not only did they spill 5 gallons of oil, burn a fryer, fill a restaurant with smoke and k**l the service day, this was the second time it happened.
Image source: stuckonpost, EyeEm
#24
Firefighter here. One extremely cold night the temperature was -11 wind chills -40’s , this guy tries starting a fire in his fireplace and couldn’t get it started. He decides to use gasoline, dumps 1/2 gallon on the firewood stacked by the door and the other 1/2 onto the wood in the fireplace. As he attempted to light the fire he couldn’t get the lighter to work. Now the vapors are really starting to build, he then goes to the kitchen which adjoins the room with the fireplace to use the stove to light some newspaper. As soon as he turned the k**b on the stove the igniter lit the gasoline vapors. The living room was instantly on fire. The vapors singed all his hair and got first degree burns on his hands and face. We on the other hand spent the next few hours in the extreme cold. Flash ahead 3 hours, the firewood outside has somehow ignited and we have to go back. The second fire had sometime to really grow, middle or the night, everyone in bed no one around. Longest coldest night of my life, all because some fool decided to use gasoline to start a fire indoors.
Image source: smoke-eater-tom, alexmihu
#25
Not a firefighter but the apt building I stayed in had a pretty good fire. Guy threw a lit cigarette in a coffee can full of butts. It was on the far end of the building from us, so my upstairs neighbor and I got to stay. Everyone else had to move. We were dealing with water leaks for almost a year after that. It took them that long to sort out insurance stuff and make repairs. Finally put on a new roof a few weeks before we moved.
Image source: athomacuzarona, EyeEm
#26
So, here in Argentina we have el cordero a la cruz, AKA cooking a whole lamb with open fire, well, it just so happens that pines are really flamable, and, if you make an unprotected fire in a floor covered in pine leaves near a blooming pine…
Image source: DLTRla4
#27
1. Once my neighbor stole 15 propane tanks and decided to make a DIY blowtorch. By neighbor I mean he lived below us. We were giving him our basement. He almost lit the house on fire but then he tripped on something and fell over. The next morning we looked and saw it had burned a little bit but not much. He was also very drunk that day.
2. Once we lived in a basement suite and the people who lived above us were making toast at 2am and the used a fork to get it out but the fork hit something so the toaster caught fire and my mom tried to wake me up but I just pulled my blanket over my head and said “I just want to sleep a little more” And then my mom said the house could burn down and I was the first one out of my house. My neighbors forgot they had ferrets inside. We grabbed our dog but they didn’t grab their ferrets. The fire department came but my neighbors could have put out the fire if they unplugged the toaster and putting baking soda on it.
Image source: _one_random_bean_
#28
My dad said that one time there was a small fire because a homeless man tried to use a microwave (that he installed himself underneath the pier) and it exploded. Apparently it worked the first few times he used it though.
Image source: kianameow
#29
I have been a firefighter for 20 years. The dumbest way I’ve seen a house fire start was when people squatting in a basement decided that a space heater would be handy in drying their clothes. Then they waited15 minutes before calling for us, trying to put out with a garden hose (into the basement on a 5-degree night). They burned down their home and the one next door.
Image source: chiefflare
#30
A guy had a bunch of ants coming through his wall. He started burning them with a butane torch and it ended really badly. He thought it be ok because the exterior wall was concrete. Yes some people are that stupid.
Image source: qdude1
#31
Most of the fires I’ve seen have been starte by the usual stupid. unattended candles, smoking in bed, smoking on d***s and passing out, unattended kitchens, etc.
The weirded one I’ve been to was a porch fire caused by sunlight refracting through a glass hummingbird feeder.
The ones we can never get to on time are kitchen grease fires doused with water. Those people are lucky to get out of the house at all.
Image source: gorammitMal
#32
Not a firefighter, but our next door neighbors built a brand new house and moved in. The last item to finish was stain the deck. After the painters were done with the first day, they took all the stained rags, stuffed them into a plastic bag and left them next to the house. Sometime after midnight the rags self-combusted, caught fire and burnt the house down.
Image source: sbonethedestroyer
#33
My Dad is a retired firefighter, and will always remember the Thanksgiving where he went on 10 calls in a 24 hour period, all related to people deep frying their turkeys. 3 people burnt up parts of their back yard, and one blew up his kitchen, and everyone else either hurt themselves or threw so much smoke out in some way that the department got called to visit. I’ve seen him come back from wildfires less tired than he was after that shift.
Image source: anon
#34
Maybe not the *dumbest* I’ve seen but the one that comes immediately to mind:
Guy lived in a trailer. Small window broke. He replaced it with a convex piece of glass he salvaged from an old TV. The sun hit at the right time of day, at the right time of the year, and magnified it to a point. That point was a stack of newspapers.
Image source: thedapperissue
#35
I was a volunteer fire fighter for 15 years, these are all calls I personally responded on.
– There was a power outage. This lady legitimately lit 400 candles, widely distributing them about the house. She placed about 40 of them along the floorboards near the kitchen cabinets. The particle board based countertops caught. We kept it to room and contents. The husband arrived home during overhaul, and it was difficult to keep a straight face while she screamed at him for not buying her marble countertops. We had just put out the candles at the base of the bed, too. I’m not sure how the countertops caught and the sheets didn’t.
– Teenagers running around a field shooting bottle rockets at each other. No one got hit, but one went in the barn, and there goes the hay.
– Guy received a recall notice for his Buick with the supercharged 3.8. You know, the well known recall of them spontaneously combusting in your garage? He knew he took good care of his car. I’m sure he did. I’m also sure he should have obeyed the instructions to park that car outside.
– Do not light cigarettes while reloading ammunition. I will not go close to your house until the ammo is done cooking off. It will be in the basement before the ammo stops. My deck gun will keep your neighbors somewhat safe, but your place is done.
– This wasn’t really a structure fire, but it did involve fire: just because HF sells a coupling to allow you to move propane between tanks, doesn’t mean you should use it. Definitely don’t use it in your basement, or refill like 20 tanks in a row with the windows closed. Eventually, it’ll go boom. It won’t last long, but you won’t have windows anymore, and that helicopter ride is expensive.
Image source: strykerdoc
#36
A teenager started a grease fire on the cook top. He was naked when he found it and didn’t want it to splash on him, so he moved it to the carpet and hit it with a wet mop. Lol.
Image source: Austinwmyers
#37
My friend burned down her whole kitchen while trying use a hairdryer to dry her trousers.
Image source: SaltyHuman111
#38
When my boyfriend was a firefighter there was this one time an old lady put 16 of those starter logs in her fireplace and lit it. Burned her house to the ground.
Image source: jamie_m_wondrs
#39
I perform restoration on fire damaged homes. I saw a fire where the fire investigator concluded it started because a bird picked up a lit cigarette and dropped it in a gutter full of dry leaves.
Image source: Pgr050590
#40
Based on the stories from relatives, the answer is by allowing ten years worth of dryer lint to accumulate inside the machine until it just bursts into flames. It was not an isolated case.
Image source: The_First_Viking
#41
News article I read.
One guy had a fish bowl in his garden shed.
Sunlight was focussed through the bowl, through his kitchen window…..
Fwoomph!
Image source: LozNewman
#42
My uncle is a firefighter, the answer is Christmas trees. They dry out, they become a ticking time bomb. He used to do an annual demonstration where he’d let a Christmas tree dry out for a few months then take it outside and ignite it. The flames would shoot 40ft in the air and the tree would be gone in a few seconds. It was mightily impressive to behold… and I’m sticking with artificial trees.
Image source: zerbey
#43
Probably too late for this to get traction but by far the dumbest is people smoking while on medical oxygen. Like the tanks are coated in labels about how flammable it is.
Edit: flammable is the inccorect term to use as the oxygen itself will not burn.
Image source: xHANYOLOx
#44
My father lived in a rented apartment. The landlord lived in the apartment beneath him.. My father had switched the fuse off the oven off, because he had done some electrical work.
He also put some receipts on the oven. In the meantime, the landlord saw the flipped off fuse (located on the basement) and flipped it on.
We wondered why it smelled burned and we discovered that the oven was on, and had burned the paper to ash.
Amazingl, it did not really burn, the paper just utnrd to ash. You could even still read some words, but if you touched it, it just turned to dust.
Image source: HdS1984
#45
2 kids playing in their backyard and decided to light the shed on fire then it spread to their 2 cars and their house, all burnt down.
A firefighter started a fire at his ex’s house to “win her back” by “saving her” claiming he was just driving by and saw it.
Kid lit curtain on fire on 2nd floor.
Apartment building almost caught fire because someone decided they could grill on the 2nd floor of an apartment building right next to the siding.
More kids being dumb and lighting their houses on fire somehow.
Image source: Deathbyninny
#46
Not a firefighter, but I was living in a big old single family home that had been converted into six apartments. Because it was a house, it had a shingle roof. The owner hired one of those “unlicensed, uninsured” type outfits to work on the roof – the kind you find hanging out at Home Depot in the morning looking for jobs.
Anyways long story short the guy was on the roof, smoking, and somehow caught it on fire. Rather than dialing 911, he ran down three flights of fire escape, got the garden hose, and ran it back up. Once he got to the top, he realized he never turned it on, so he ran back down, turned it on, and ran back up. Apparently by that time it was out of control, so he headed off. One of the neighbors finally called 911 but by then it was a full on blaze, destroyed the top two floors and most of the first floor.
Moral of the story is, just call the professionals.
Image source: CorpCounsel
#47
Mister Homeowner was attempting to deep fry tater tots in a sauce pan of oil on a gas stove. The oil frothed up when the frozen tots hit the surface, igniting the whole thing. Mister Homeowner then proceeded to try to grab the pan by the handle and swing it over to the sink. I imagine it was like a Vietnam era napalm run. Well, he managed to spread the fire across the linoleum floor and in panic, let go of the pan, launching it, the remaining burning oil, and tots into the laundry basket which was full of freshly dried clothes. In the ensuing panic Mister Homeowner thought he could try to get the flaming laundry basket out to the back porch. Well, he only managed to knock the flaming basket off the table and it tumbled off the table and strait down the basement stairs leaving a nice trail of burning oil soaked towels all the way down.
Now Mister Homeowner decides to make egress out the back kitchen door, down the stairs to the back yard. He slightly missed the stairs, hit his bare right foot on one the railing posts, breaking a couple toes, and flew forward off the staircase managing to impale himself onto a bit of rebar that was protruding from a cement block they were using as a sort of barrier on the edge of the cement patio. There he stayed, clad only in boxer shorts. He managed to nick his liver pretty bad (but survived). Did I mention he had burned his legs up pretty bad as well?
So, the smells and smoke and the screams of Mister Homeowner, at finding himself stuck through with a rusty piece of iron, alerted Big Mamma, Mister Homeowner’s Girlfriend, and Punk Teen Kids Number One and Two upstairs that something was afoot. As far as we could tell, Mamma went looking for the kids or the dogs (both dogs made it out). Girlfriend made it out and down the stairs (over the raging laundry/oil fire one flight below). She found Mister Homeowner on the back patio, bleeding and turning gray, screaming and trying to get off the pike.
The Punk Teen Kids (with the dogs) climbed out a side bedroom window to the side porch roof. The older Punk Teen Kid (about 16 years of age) managed to tumble off. He didn’t land well. I think he ended up breaking his arm really bad. The dogs and the younger one got pulled off that roof by the neighbors.
Mamma apparently had a significant cardiac event and fell over. She happened to do so in “the junk room” – a sort of Collyer Brothers style room filled shoulder high with stacked boxes of junk. By the time we got in there, it was just a charred, soaked mess of black slop about waist deep. We had to dig Mamma out of it. That was wretched.
All of this had attracted the attention of the many foreign laborers who were living in the boarding house next door. They helped the best they could but also became a very raucous audience. A few of them were bomberos voluntarios back in Guatemala and having an entire company of mostly non-English speaking vollies show up intent on going to work made things VERY interesting. Two of those guys saved Mister Homeowner’s life though.
I have never, in my 27 years of doing this, arrived on a scene of such screaming and chaos.
Image source: Night_Chicken
#48
Not a firefighter, but there’s a case I heard about on the news where someone was trying to burn spiders with hairspray and a lighter and caught the whole house on fire.
Another tried to deepfry a frozen turkey inside the house.
Image source: anon
#49
Lady was mad at her landlord. So she soaked an interior closet full from floor to ceiling of clothes in her second floor apartment with an accelerant. I think rubbing alcohol. She then lit it on fire and left. Luckily she shut the door which kept it at a slow burn and contained for the most part. Her apartment and everything in it was ruined from water and smoke damage. She was very upset we were throwing her clothes and items from an adjacent bedroom out the 2nd story balcony to the ground below to overhaul and ensure we weren’t called back for a re kindle and burned down apartment complex.
Image source: Endersgame88
#50
Not a firefighter, but a childhood friend of mine is. Last time we were catching up he had a story about how someone’s water bed sprung a leak that caused an electrical fire due to a power strip sparking near curtains. House was fine but they need some new shades and a fresh coat of paint lol.
Image source: Nomadic_Photography
#51
I’m not a firefighter but after a month of my sister living in her first apartment, we had a huge snowstorm and she bought some everlast (is that what they’re called?) fire logs to save on heat. She put one in the fireplace and tried to light it but I guess it never really caught fire and just smoldered for a while. Disappointed, she shut the flue, closed the glass doors, and went to bed. She woke up in the middle of the night to her apartment filled with thick smoke. In a panic, she took the smoldering log from the fireplace and tossed it on her snowy wooden balcony. In the morning, the log had burned through her balcony and the one below it. If you looked through the hole, you could see it on the patio two floors below her.
Image source: BigFuturology
#52
18 year old got mad at her parents and set the house on fire. She was an adult and a resident and did it intentionally, so insurance didn’t pay. Whole family, including her was homeless.
Image source: bknight63
#53
Decided to use an angle grinder (illegally) on a very high fire danger day, set the grass alight and burned down 12 houses.
“The grass just burned so quickly”
No s**t you f*****t, why do you think we make grinding illegal on those days.
Honorable mentions go to the military for doing something similar with explosives because “we are on defence property so you cant tell us what to do”
Set fire to defence land, fire kept going, killing 2, destroying 500 houses and $94 million.
Image source: anon
#54
My mom was a fire fighter in her early 30s. One day she got an emergency call saying “I think our neighbors house is on fire and the people inside aren’t responding”. They immediately rushed to destination. The house looked fine except the lot of smokes coming out of the windows. They knocked the door no one responded at first. So they asked if anyone inside. The conversation went like this
They: “Hello! Is anyone inside. There’s a smoke coming out of your house.”
The boy : “Who are you? Are you momma’s friend here to help me with my dish?”
They: “Yeah we are. Open the door and let me in”
Him : “The doors open. Com’on in”
What they saw was the dumbest thing ever. There was a kid laying on the sofa and was watching TV and waving at them while the pan on the gas stove was burning. They lay off the fire and asked the kid what he was doing with that pan. He said he was making Chinese food he saw on TV. He said the people would fire the dish and that made the dish delicious.
Image source: Do_mind_me_guys_18
#55
Not a firefighter. I was an apartment manager and I suddenly hear screaming and smell smoke. I run outside and see smoke billowing out from the apartment next to me. I have keys to every apartment, but I try the door and find it is unlocked. Smoke is coming from the kitchen.
Middle aged single lady likes deep-fried foods, and put a pot on the stove half-filled with oil, and turned on the heat to “high”. It is apparently taking a while, so she decides to lay down on her bed for a few minutes to rest, and “of course” falls asleep.
The vapors coming off the hot oil have ignited, so I turn the flame off, and then take the pot-holder cloths and scoot it over to an unpowered burner.
As I am yelling to see if anyone is in the smoke-filled apartment, I then see that the flames have gone out, so I take the boiling oil-pot outside and set it on the sidewalk.
Sleepy woman wakes up from the noise and is confused.
Image source: series_hybrid
#56
We got called for a house fire once in a pretty decent neighborhood. After we put the fire out, we were talking to the owner who told us “the bugs in the garage were everywhere so I was just trying to burn a few of them”. Turns out, she smoked m**h, hallucinated, soaked the floor in gasoline and lit it off. Burned her arms pretty good, but overall she was fine. Luckily we contained it to the garage, but you truly never know what people are thinking.
Image source: dexbakertg
#57
Obligatory not a firefighter, but one of my friends burned his kitchen pretty bad because after he put some pizza rolls in the oven, he used the timer feature on his microwave, setting it for twenty minutes. Problem is, he never turned the timer mode on and had headphones in, so he didn’t hear the fateful whirrrrrrrr of a currently microwaving microwave.
Image source: flyingblindOR
#58
Not a firefighter, but a guy in my friend’s office building forgot his cheese pita in the toaster over. Heard from his colleagues that he was still a temp when he started the fire.
Image source: Humza5
#59
I’m driving by a house and see smoke coming out from under soffit. I see a guy thawing pipes, with his feet sticking out of crawl space. I tell him, his house is on fire and I’m a firefighter. I also tell him to get out and call FD, (before cell phones) I’ll go to firehouse and get truck. I get in firetruck, and call in fire to HQ. He never called it in, and was still under house thawing pipes when we responded to fire. Upper wall and attic was in flames.
Image source: jackson71
#60
My chief tells a story of a fire investigation he was a part of. He was interviewing the homeowner in the burned out hall of his house looking at the burned out closet that now had a skylight. They were having trouble determining a cause, so my chief was having the owner walk through what he had been doing prior to the fire. The homeowner said to him, “I finished vacuuming around the fire place, brought the vacuum to the closet and … I just burned down my house, didn’t I”
Another one, a few years ago, cleaned out their wood stove and put the hot ashes in a cardboard box on their porch up against the siding.
And there is always thawing frozen pipes with a torch…
Image source: oldmortality
#61
My dad (and hero) was a firefighter for 30 years. He had lots of great stories here are two:
His last week before retiring he had a call where this guy and his new wife had just returned from their honeymoon. They put their lawn mower and yard tools in the basement for safe keeping during their trip. He went downstairs, hoped on to drive the mower outside. Well gas fumes had built up in the basement so when he started the mower, a fire flashed over. Yeah house was a total loose except for the refrigerator in the garage with plenty of beer to toast their epic return.
Second story. They were called to a garage fire in kind of a rural part of the district. It was a large detached garage and I don’t remember exactly how the fire started. Probably something to do with a blow torch. Anyway, trucks arrived, started to run the lines, confirmed with the owner that no one was inside. A bit later the owner runs over because he forgot to tell Dad that there were tanks of flammable gases inside. Dad had everyone drop back fast. Of course An explosion followed and all of the trucks that were closer to the garage had all of the light covers melt. He said it looked like the trucks were crying. Thank God no injuries or causalities except the trucks.
Image source: maybeCheri
#62
My uncle was FDNY and they had a call for smoke coming out of a house. They show up bang on the door, no answer. End up breaking the door down. There’s a family in the living room with some kind of pit in the middle and they were roasting a goat over open coals.
Image source: Mayornayz
#63
Not a firefighter but friend of one and couple years ago he shared this gem.
-Dumb drunk lady (DDL
-Sad Husband(SH
-Fire department record keeper (FD otherwise my friend
____________________________________________
In my area I don’t know how this is for everyone else but I assume similar,they will take records on all fire that includes…Cause,Deaths/Injurys and some other stuff I can’t remember.
FD:And would you like to explain how the fire started ?
DDL: So I was drinking as usual but my beer spilled so I went to go get a paper towel and I put down my LIT cigar down I come back and my entire chair,table and a small bit of my floor on fire.
DDL:So I-
SH:You put cardboard on it and now this is the reason you have stop drinking.
DDL:Well your always out of the house!
SH:That’s because I’m the only one that pays the house mortgage!
At this point they start arguing about their crappy marrige
FD:Both of you please calm down I just wanna know what started the fire.
Both of them calm down a little but only because my friend is really calm
FD:DDL and SH continue
DDL:So I put cardboard on the fire to suffocate it but it didn’t work so I threw water at it but it was already to late that’s when I called 911
Please note that this lady is constantly slurring her words she was really hammered apparently.
FD wrote this down and said “Have a good day.”
I’m really new to this whole thing so sorry if anything is wrong.
Image source: Pumpkin_PYE
#64
I hope people see this.
My neighbor had a big barn with a huge mouse problem. So he built this machine that a mouse goes on top of a wired platform and gets zapped to death. He was so proud of this machine he had to show the entire neighborhood. Fast forward three weeks, his entire barn burns down to the ground. The cause? Mouse got zapped, lit on fire, runs into a whole bunch of bailed hay.
Image source: anon
#65
A few months ago my childhood home caught in fire because my dad threw his gloves in the garage after working in the firepit in the backyard and a stray ember was still on his glove. Tens of thousands of dollars of damage ensued. Be careful, guys.
Image source: Ben-Stanley
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