Only you can prevent apartment fires

If you’ve kept up with local news in the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed the string of house fires across the county. Overpowering flames have destroyed families’ belongings, leaving many homeless.

Though I’ve always been terrified of fires, recent events probably explain why I’ve been more on-edge about fire hazards in my apartment. For instance, a few weeks ago my toaster oven short-circuited while reheating some corn muffins. I promptly unplugged the ancient appliance and now keep it that way unless I need to use it.

I’m also paranoid about leaving my flat iron plugged in — once in college I left it on all day and came home to a dresser with burn marks on it.

So last week when I smelled smoke in my kitchen, I got nervous.

“Maybe it’s just someone smoking outside,” I tried to convince myself. I did have the door to my balcony wide open; it was possible cigarette smoke had drifted inside.

I let myself believe the scent was from a smoker and walked down the hall to my room. But a few minutes later I returned to a smoke-filled kitchen.

After a brief moment of shock, I raced to the toaster oven, but it was unplugged. The stove? All burners were off. The oven? Off. Nothing was cooking or even turned on, yet a pungent haze swirled around the room.

Without another thought, I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. Shaking, I explained to the dispatcher that my kitchen was full of smoke but I was not cooking anything. Maybe someone downstairs was burning his or her dinner? Or maybe there was an electrical fire within the wall?

I ran downstairs and knocked on my neighbors’ door, but he was not cooking and seemed unalarmed about my situation. Back upstairs, I looked through the rest of the apartment but found no source for the smoke.

A knock at the door startled me — my downstairs neighbor had come to check things out. I imagined his wife nagging him to find out what was happening and make sure I was OK. Minutes later, I found myself giving the fire chief a tour of my apartment. But the chief — who I had just interviewed the week before on the scene of another fire — was just as perplexed as I was.

The next thing I knew, there were at least 10 firefighters congregating in my apartment. When I looked out my door, I saw they had made their way into my neighbor’s apartment across the hall.

“Sorry,” I yelled to him as I waved. I was embarrassed my 911 call had brought four fire engines, an ambulance, a sheriff’s deputy and an army of firefighters for a smoke-filled kitchen.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said.

I gave him a confused look.

Apparently, my neighbor had left a pot of lentils on the stove while he took a shower, which consequently burned and filled his apartment with smoke.

He had tried to air the place out before realizing the blaring sirens were because of him.

Relieved that there was no actual fire, yet perplexed as to how the smoke came across the hall, I chuckled as the spectacle unfolded before me. Firefighters brought up two industrial fans to clear out the smoke from our units, taking up most of the space in the hall. I had to clutch my skirt tightly as I walked past to avoid channeling Marilyn Monroe in front of Culpeper’s fire department.

“She is going to kill you when she gets back,” I told my neighbor. His girlfriend was in California for the week.

“Yeah, she’s never going to leave again,” he said. “Before she left she said, ‘Don’t burn the house down.’”

It was a big scare, but thank goodness it wasn’t anything worse.

Catherine Amos once had to run outside with a smoke-filled toaster oven while babysitting to avoid setting off the smoke detectors. She can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 138 or .