Only You Can Prevent House Fires

Image via Wikipedia

There are two things I’m afraid of: firearms and fire. I blame this on the constant school assemblies where speakers preached against playing with guns and matches. And maybe on Smokey the Bear, too.

Welcome to the Dominican Republic, land of eternal mosquitos and gas appliances. In some countries, the self-lighting feature of a gas stove is standard, but here one must use matches.

Another interesting thing about the DR is that ovens are basically storage facilities for pots and pans because nobody bakes (hence the depressing wasteland of crummy bread). Rice, beans, meat, and fried everything (plantains, yucca, salami, etc.) are all prepared on the stove.

This is why, 6 months into my life abroad, I had not yet manually lit an oven. I was still living with a host family, hardly cooked for myself, and, in Dominican fashion, was accustomed to using only the stove. And due to my childhood Smokey-induced fear, I still hyperventilated when I had to turn on the gas and strike a match.

The day for learning to light an oven arrived when my friend Meredith and I decided to try our hand at granola-making. Our host families’ ovens were apparently broken, so a friend invited us to use their kitchen while they were out. So there we are, preparing to preheat the oven, eyeing the appliance suspiciously. How does this work again? I insist we merely have to turn the knob to the appropriate temperature. That was, I remind Meredith, how it worked at the beach condo that one time.

Twenty minutes later the oats are ready to bake, yet the oven is cold. Meredith flashes me an I-told-you-so glare. Hmmm. What next? Upon a thorough inspection of the appliance I discover a little flick switch. I also notice the oven dial has the word asar on it. Building on my Stateside knowledge that a gas stove is lit when one first turns the knob to high, I assume asar must mean light. Even though I have known for ages that encender is the verb.

My plan is twofold: Quickly fling the dial over to asar and at the same time flip the lighting switch. Ready, set…

“Are you sure about this?” Meredith is not as confident as I am. Or at least not as confident as I am acting, because I really have no idea what I’m doing.

“Yeah, it’s totally going to be fine! Trust me!”

I pull open the oven to be able to verify that it lights and prepare my hands for action. Ready, set…

KAAAVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A giant flame explodes inside the oven, rattling the metal eyes of the stove above, and I fly backwards, shoved by a wave of heat and terror. Although I don’t have the presence of mind to stop, drop, and roll, I think that I am on fire, and I begin to jump around and holler in a tribal-dance sort of way. Or maybe that was Meredith?

When I come to the realization that the house and I are not in fact covered in flames, I assign Meredith the task of assessing the state of the oven. Surely I have single-handedly blown it up, or at least broken it, but I am not going to get within ten feet of that thing to find out. Thankfully the only casualties appear to be our nerves. And the tops of my feet feel like they got sunburned.

So how do you light an oven without burning down the house? Well, you don’t let the oven fill up with gas for twenty minutes like this genius. And after all that time you don’t toss in an extra load of gas via the broil (asar) setting while lighting it. Instead, you set the temperature and, if you have a fancy oven with a switch, you flick it, or you shove a match in a hole at the bottom of the appliance.

It comes down to a simple equation, really: lots of gas + fire = explosion.

Now that I have had months to recover from this emotional trauma, I can tell the story with a laugh and even light an oven (with a match, no less!) on my own.

But the lesson remains, and, like Smokey, I implore you: don’t play with fire.

Advertisement