Ever heard of entire families getting wiped out overnight by fire or smoke?
Whenever I see such stories, I often wonder how a fire or smoke big enough to cause harm starts and nobody notices. Well, I got my answer when the same incident almost happened to me.
One of those nights after a long and busy day, I felt like taking a warm shower, so I decided to boil a kettle of water. It was a long and busy day for me, and I needed to rest so badly. Somehow, I slept off because of fatigue, forgetting that I placed a kettle of water on the cooker.
My usual nightly routine is to go around the house to check that everything is in order before going to bed. This night was unusual. As body no be firewood, I was completely knocked out and couldn’t bother about checking anything.
I woke up around 2 a.m. to the smell of rubber burning. Half asleep, the only reason I could think of at that moment was the street vigilante burning tyres like they do sometimes, so I went back to sleep. Again, that was very unusual of me, because my normal self would have gone out to confirm what was going on. Only this night was unusual.
I woke up again around 5:30 am but didn’t get out of bed until 6 am. The smell of burning rubber was still in the air and was getting a bit too strong for comfort, but I dismissed it. I was still a bit drowsy. When my senses awoke, it dawned on me that this smell was closer to me than I initially thought. It was too strong to be far off.
“Maybe one of my neighbours left food on the fire,” I thought to myself. So I got up and decided to investigate further. On opening the bedroom door and getting to the living room, the smell got even stronger. Now, that got my attention. I followed the smell to the kitchen door and opened it.
There it was!!
It wasn’t the neighbour’s burning food.
It wasn’t the street vigilantes burning tyres on the road.
It was the kettle of water I left on the cooker overnight!!
At that point, the kettle must have been around 200 degrees hot. All the water in it had dried up, and the plastic lid on the kettle had melted flat. That was the source of the rubber smell that engulfed the house.
How did a fire not start?? I still can’t explain how a fire did not start until now because all the conditions needed were right there. In that kitchen, there was wood, plastic, gas, and even a refrigerator — all within proximity to each other in a tiny kitchen.
Ha, obara Jesus! Thank God I’m still here to tell the story.
