Those of you who read here know that I retired from the Fire Department in 2011, after spending nearly 3 decades putting out fires and rescuing damsels. So when I read a story like this one, I can tell you exactly what happened:
The power was out for days. Appliances like stovetops are frequently left on when the power is out. Once power is restored, the stove top comes back on, but there are usually things piled on top of the burners, things like boxes of food, utensils, and other flammable objects. Now you have a fire. If no one is home to detect it, the first hint anyone has is when the fire burns a hole to the outside (called self-venting) and a passer-by notices the flames. By then, it’s too late to do anything but keep the fire from spreading to other, nearby houses.
Generally, once a fire leaves the room of origin, the house is a total loss. When a fire starts, if it isn’t extinguished within 10 minutes (most times even less than that) the house will be a total loss.
For that reason, when the power goes out, best practice is to turn off every circuit breaker in the house, save one that powers a lamp, so when it does come back on, you will know it when the light turns on, but the chances of a fire are minimized.
2 Comments
footintheforest · February 14, 2026 at 12:36 pm
MITIGATE if you have things growing outside your home and do not know, understand, and practice this word you might as well be leaving shit on your electric stove in a power outage.
Divemedic · February 14, 2026 at 12:48 pm
This is, at best, a VERY loose association to the post above.