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" The other night, Rich and I were having a nice pre-dinner chat. I was at the electric stove, with sausages on the front left burner, a pot of boiling pasta behind it, and simmering tomato sauce on the front right burner. Rich was sitting in a chair at the other end of the kitchen. Wendy dog was at my feet, hoping that something might jump out of the pan and into her waiting mouth. Boy, was she not prepared for what happened next!  I turned my back to the stove for one second to tell Rich something, and he yelled,&amp;quot;Get back!&amp;quot; I whirled around to the stove and saw sparks shooting from the back left burner, high into the air and onto the stovetop and the floor. Wendy and I fled, just as flames started to emerge from the coil (it&amp;#039;s not a smooth glass cooktop -- it&amp;#039;s a coil element stove).  Rich and I huddled in the doorway, unsure of what to do -- then one of us (can&amp;#039;t remember who!) ran for the fire extinguisher. Meanwhile, it was like 4th of July in my kitchen -- sparks shooting, flames still going, crazy popping noises. I knew we had to turn off the 3 burners that were on -- but the controls are at the BACK of the stove.  &amp;quot;We have to turn it off!&amp;quot; I said. The flames looked like they were subsiding, so Rich went for it, turning off the right burner first, then reaching OVER the pasta pot and flames and sparks to get the left side. (Don&amp;#039;t ask why we didn&amp;#039;t run to the circuit breaker in the basement -- it didn&amp;#039;t occur to either of us until later.) Just as he reached back there, the flames and sparks began anew, and he jumped back, his wrist burned. But he did shut everything off.  &amp;quot;Oh my God!&amp;quot; I screamed for what was easily the 27th time.  &amp;quot;We have to get that stuff off the stove,&amp;quot; Rich said, and went back in to get the pasta pot and put it in the sink.  Dinner, of course, was ruined. The kitchen was a disaster. I examined the stove. The coil was burned -- destroyed. Clearly, it had combusted.   Bits of burned, black-- what? dirt? -- was everywhere. After a big hug and a sigh of relief that everyone was still alive and safe, we set about cleaning up. I threw out the sauce, the sausages. I examined the vinyl floor -- there were little pinhole burns where the sparks went straight through. Then I went to throw out the pasta, now congealed in the pot in the sink. There was very little water in the pot, but since I&amp;#039;d just cleaned up so much of it off the floor, I figured Rich had spilled it in the panic of the moment.  It wasn&amp;#039;t until I upended my heavy, 6-quart Cuisinart copper core stainless steel stock pot over the garbage can that I saw the hole in the bottom. The fire had burned a hole straight through the bottom of this heavy stock pot! I was shocked.  I&amp;#039;d never expected this, and certainly never experienced anything like it. So I called Mom.  &amp;quot;What kind of stove is it?&amp;quot; she asked. &amp;quot;That happened to me once with my JennAir range.&amp;quot; Mine was a Whirlpool, probably around 10 years old. She drew no connections, but did have plenty of sympathy.  After placing an order from our favorite Italian takeout place, Joey&amp;#039;s Italian Kitchen, I did a web search. &amp;quot;Electric coil fire&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;electric stove fire&amp;quot;, electric coil burner fire&amp;quot; -- I found a few links to personal tales of woe, but no hard info on what to do in such an emergency, or whether the stove should be immediately kicked to the curb, or if it&amp;#039;s ok to just replace the coil -- or hey, if in fact this only happens on stoves that were manufactured before a certain year, but now there are more safety measures in place! I got none of that info.  So I contacted the folks at Whirlpool. I was told that such an electric coil malfunction is extremely rare -- so rare in fact, that there wasn&amp;#039;t much more they could tell me.  The appliance sales guy at Home Depot, where I went to browse for new ranges, suggested that until I replace my stove, I simply replace all four of the coil burners. So I did. The offending back left burner doesn&amp;#039;t work at all, but the other three do. And so for now, I cook tentatively, never turning my back for an instant, lest this horror turns out to be not so rare after all.  And in the meantime, I need a new electric range. If you&amp;#039;ve got a recommendation, I&amp;#039;d sure love to hear it! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/home/advice/a2680/kitchen-fire/>