My house burned down after I made a VERY basic mistake in the kitchen
Kyndall Zachary thought nothing of it when she put a brownie on a paper plate to warm it in the microwave.
The 22-year-old accidentally pressed two minutes instead of the intended 20 seconds and, when she opened the appliance, found it filled with smoke.
'I grabbed the paper plate of brownies and ran them under water and then threw them away in the trash can,' the North Carolina student told the Daily Mail.
Kyndall had also wiped the kitchen counter off with a paper towel before placing that in the trash can too, which was located under the counter in a cupboard.
'Forty-five minutes later, after I cleared all the smoke out by opening the doors and having fans going, I go to my room and am about to go to bed,' she said.
'I thought everything was fine,' she admitted. 'I kept the fans going and I took my two small dogs with me.'
Kyndall was almost asleep when she heard a 'weird beeping' sound before getting up to investigate what it was.
'I walked out of my room and turned the corner to see a bright orange glow, smoke and heard crackling of the fire coming from the kitchen,' she said. 'I sprinted back in my room called 911 grabbed my two small dogs that were with me.'
The quick-thinking young woman, who instantly knew she had to evacuate, alerted her brother who was in the basement and ran out the front door.
According to Kyndall, the fire started in the trash can almost an hour after she had thrown the brownie away.
'It got too hot in the trash can, mixed with paper towels also in the trash can it started a spark,' she explained.
'The scary part is that the beeping wasn't even the fire alarm because the fire alarm never went off,' she added.
'The fire possibly tripped the power of the microwave and that was the beeping that made me get up,' she explained. 'The fire department said had it been a few more minutes it would have been an entirely different story.'
Kyndall suffers from PSTD from the incident, admitting she has had panic attacks and nightmares about my house catching on fire again.
'I refuse to cook anything right now, I can't look at or even smell anything fire related right now,' she said.
'Although the fire didn't spread past the kitchen the entire home is not livable and most of our things cannot be saved from all of the water damage, fire damage, soot and smoke damage,' Kyndall said
'Although the fire didn't spread past the kitchen the entire home is not livable and most of our things cannot be saved from all of the water damage, fire damage, soot and smoke damage.'
Kyndall, who has three siblings, said she is unsure where her family will go now.
'We have looked around but it's hard when we have no furniture and just need it short term, and since we have four dogs it's just complicated,' she pointed out.
She urged everyone to have a fire safety plan so they can also act quickly in an emergency.
'It's scary to think the fire started almost an hour after I ran the brownies under water and threw them away,' she mused. 'I would have never imagined I walk out of my room to see my entire kitchen engulfed in flames.'
She thanked her local fire department for their speed.
'They informed me that this was completely unintentional and a freak accident, anytime in the future I would absolutely put it in almost a pool of water for hours before I throw anything hot away again,' she declared.
In 2023, the National Fire Protection Association reported a whopping 44 percent of all house fires started in the kitchen.
Ranges or cooktops were involved in 53 percent of the reported home cooking fires, 88 percent of cooking fire deaths, and 74 percent of cooking fire injuries. Households with electric ranges had a higher risk of cooking fires and associated losses than those with gas ranges.
Unattended cooking was the leading factor contributing to cooking fires and casualties. Clothing was the item first ignited in less than one percent of these fires, but clothing ignition led to seven percent of the home cooking fire deaths.
More than one-quarter of the people killed by cooking fires were asleep when they were fatally injured. More than half of the non-fatal injuries occurred when people tried to control the fire themselves.
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