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.
13 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.
Grumpy51 · February 14, 2026 at 1:33 pm
Somewhere back in the crevices of grey matter, in fire academy we were taught a fire doubles in size every 5 minutes…. and yes, flat surfaces not being used get, well……., used for other things…..
It's just Boris · February 14, 2026 at 1:37 pm
I wouldn’t have even thought of this for this reason – I’ve had a gas range for all but a few years of my adult life – but turning off most breakers is a good idea anyway.
For the power company, it helps to have a reduced load when things are connected back up. Even a ramp to full power over a couple of seconds is more graceful and easier to manage than everything coming up all at once.
For the consumer, having the breakers closed means none of the transients in voltage and phase that can occur during power restoration are going to seen by things like TVs, computers, appliances (which in addition to motors are pretty much computers themselves nowadays), etc. Thus, less likely to be damaged.
Steady Steve · February 14, 2026 at 1:43 pm
When I’ve been away at my job, sometimes for months, I have always turned off high power use items. The exception was air conditioning as I live in Florida.
nones · February 14, 2026 at 5:22 pm
I am standing at my kitchen sink and out of the corner of my eye I see the large burner on our cook top cooling down from red heat. The switch was off. I had noticed that the switch was acting a little weird a few days prior. I replaced the switch but I make a point of never leaving anything flammable on the stove top. Recently an acquaintance of mine had a house fire because of the exact problem. She had left a wood cutting board on the stove top and a burner heated up.
TRX · February 14, 2026 at 5:23 pm
My local power company is unable to cleanly restore power about half the time. Sometimes it will blink on and off several times, and you can see the voltage sags and surges by how dim or bright the lights get. We lost a VCR and a microwave to that, so now we flip off all the breakers except for one of the lighting circuits.
Danny · February 14, 2026 at 5:23 pm
Really good advice. You can throw the main too. You’ll know when power is restored when the crew is on your block working on it.
We have a nifty fire blanket close by in the event of primarily a kitchen fire. Throw it over the range or oven to smother the flame.
Tennessee Budd · February 14, 2026 at 7:01 pm
But, if not on the stovetop, where am I to store the six months’ worth of bread, eggs, milk, and toilet paper I cleared the store shelves of?
C · February 15, 2026 at 1:33 am
Something I always found crazy is how fast room full of synthetic materials burns comparedbto one with natural materials.
Tom235 · February 15, 2026 at 8:38 am
Sometimes, off then on electricity (“why did you put the heater in that place?” “we wanted to warm things when the electricity came back on”), but up in the mountains in winter, chimney fires were not uncommon. Also being up in the mountains in winter, the fire dept couldn’t always get to the scene quickly. We did manage to save a lot of wood piles though.
Ron · February 15, 2026 at 10:55 am
In the snowy places I have lived it is amazing how often houses burn only to find that the mensa candidate dug the “cold” ashes out of the woodstove into a cardboard box, setting it on the back porch to be emptied later.
JBB · February 15, 2026 at 10:12 am
We live a bit south of you and have had days long power outages during several hurricanes over the years, Ian the most notable. When the power fails, everything gets shut off or unplugged and I leave a ceiling fan on. It’s a happy day when it finally starts spinning.
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