On Friday my five year old asked for a bandaid and being on bedrest I told her to go ahead and get one. We keep the bandaids in the kitchen in a top cabinet to the right of the stove. (If they were more accessible the two year old would have them stuck all over the carpet) Being on bedrest has made the kids very self sufficient and I didn't think twice about it, I figured she would get a chair and reach the bandaids easily. My mom (bless her soul) who has been staying with us to help us out while I am on bedrest had just gotten home one minute before and was changing the two year old's diaper. We had our two 12 year old neighbor girls over and they were talking with me in the family room while I was lying on the couch.

I heard the five year old say from the kitchen, "someone left the stove on" and then "the stove is on fire". She was so calm, I asked the neighbor girls to take a look since it is really hard for me to walk and it sounded like my daughter was describing a hot burner. The one said, "yeah there's a fire" and the second "yep, your stove is on fire". My mom, in the middle of changing the diaper, hopped up and grabbed a baby blanket that was in a basket next to her. I followed after her with another baby blanket.

What I saw when I rounded the corner shocked me! My crock pot was on the stove and it was engulfed in flames that were 3 feet high. My mom tried to smother the flames but it was not going out so she grabbed the flaming crock pot and put it on the ground, now with a fire on the stove and a fire on the ground we kept trying to smother both with the blankets. I was thinking "I don't have a fire extinguisher! I need a large wet towel" Too far away from towels to be fast enough I grabbed some dish towels from a cupboard, wet them down and started putting them on top of the blankets. Just when we thought the fires were out the neighbor girls would tell us, "now the blanket is on fire". My Mom figured out that the reason the stove fire wasn't going out was because air was getting to the fire from the other burners. Once she spread the blanket over the entire stove top it finally went out. Here is the bottom of the crockpot:

and the blankets used to smother the fire:

It turns out that the crockpot was on the counter and my five year old wanted to climb onto the counter to reach the bandaids. She picked up the crock pot (I didn't even know she could lift it!) and slid it onto the stove to make room to climb up. The crockpot must have turned on the burner when she slid it over the knobs.

We were so blessed! The situation could have been so bad. If my daughter hadn't noticed right away that the stove was on, if my mom hadn't have been there, if the blankets hadn't been close by, if my neighbors hadn't been there as extra eyes to guide us where the flames were coming back. To make matters even more scary, that night my husband looked and none of our smoke detectors worked and we actually had a fire extinguisher (I just didn't know where it was) however it was too old that it wouldn't have worked anyway. My daughter could have been badly burned, our house would have been destroyed if it had been just me at home on bedrest. My only option would have been to hobble out with the kids and try to find a neighbor to call 911.

That morning I had felt prompted to pray that my Mom, me and the two little ones would be kept safe that day. I usually don't do that, I always pray for those in our family that are going to school or work, but usually not for those of us that are hanging out at home all day. I was pretty shaken up afterward thinking about all the things that could have happened. That night when I was reading the New Testament I came across the quote up above. I felt it really summed up my feelings about this experience with the fire. All of us were blessed with sound minds, and we were not afraid while we were fighting the fire, I really feel like the Lord blessed us immensely.

Now we have 4 installed smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher installed near the kitchen. For family home evening last night we went over our escape plans in case of a fire and practiced how the kids would call 911. Most importantly we explained to our kids that they should never put anything on the stove. No more climbing up on cabinets and as my friend advised we are going to start keeping our bandaids in the bathroom!