In uni halls
the fire alarm would go off several times a week, and when it went off in one house it set off the alarms in the two either side. Unfortunately for our house, which had never set it off, we were in the middle of the two worst houses for false alarms (smoking in rooms and stuff).

So of course one day when the alarm went off I casually finished my phone-call, put on some shoes, went looking for my jumper then heard my mate shouting "The place is on fire!", assuming he was taking the piss because of how often the alarm sounds I carried on looking for my jumper.

Upon opening my door though I was met with a wall of nasty plastic smoke, none of which had come through up to then. I wandered down to the kitchen to find the two guys who were in planning to run in to grab the fire extiguisher, it seemed, with what little we could actually see that the toaster was on fire. Anders the Danish guy ran in, got the extinguisher and sprayed it a couple of times, then we had to leave it until the fire brigade arrived.


After sitting in the car keeping warm (whilst all the people from the other houses that normally set it off froze) for a while we were allowed back in to our very black and very damp kitchen, the only damage being one destroyed cupboard and of course the toaster.

Here's a pic of it, I can't believe how much black smoke came off such a small thing, but almost all the plastic had gone off it. The black bit of wall is where the cupboard was.


Cause of fire was probably an electrical fault as no-one had been in for about 2 hours. The cupboard belonged to the owner of the toaster who wasn't in, we left it outside for her return with a post-it note on identifying it as hers :)
( NomDePlume fo shizzle my nizzle old bean, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 19:47, Reply)