What's that black stuff creeping up the wall?

I'm not a bad cook, actually, I consider myself a pretty good cook, but with anything that gets done a lot, there will be some mis-steps, some accidents; I'm not sure what category this falls under, but it definitely was a cooking boo-boo.

My husband was at work so it was just me for dinner. He isn't a fan of pizza, but I am so once in awhile when I know he won't be eating dinner with me, I'll pick up a frozen pizza for myself.

The directions said to pre-heat the oven to 425 - which I did. Remove the pizza from the packaging except for the cardboard baking sheet, and place in the oven 6 inches away from the bottom. I did precisely what it said. It was to bake for about 18 minutes.

I puttered around the kitchen for a few minutes, putting dishes in the dishwasher, and wiping down the counter. I glanced at the clock on the microwave and I still had 10 minutes before I could eat my cheese stuffed crust pizza with everything on it. The kitchen smelled a bit funny, but it had earlier when I made lunch. The oven had smoked a bit, but when I looked at it, I didn't see anything and figured that maybe some food had spilled and was burning off.

Well, I figured the smell was the rest of the food burning off and I headed to the living room and my laptop. I had 10 minutes to play around on Facebook. The couch where I was sitting was facing directly into the kitchen and I had a good view of the oven. As I pulled up my farm, I glanced into the kitchen. Hmmm, I never noticed that shadow on the wall behind the stove. I looked at the front of the oven, black streaks were shooting up the white front. Wow, I thought, I didn't realize I spilled anything down the front. I sat there pondering why my kitchen and especially my oven was so dirty when I noticed an orange glow coming from the back. BEEP BEEP BEEP! The fire alarm started screaming.

FIRE! My oven, my kitchen was on fire. But first I put my laptop carefully on the floor. I ran to the kitchen - now black streaks were creeping across the linoleum floor. FIRE! I glanced at my bread machine chugging away next to the oven. Crap - Kenny's bread will be ruined if I unplug this.

FIRE! Oh yeah, I better do something about the fire. I turned off the oven. I looked around - should I just run to the neighbor's house, call the fire department. I ran into the laundry room where the fire extinguisher was. Hmm, should I use it? I've never used one before and I've heard they really make a mess. Maybe I should just go to the neighbors.

FIRE! oh yeah, there's a fire in my kitchen and I live in a trailer - maybe I should do something. Grab stuff? What should I grab? My laptop? Pictures; Shoot I better find the cats.

FIRE FIRE FIRE! Oh yeah - better try to put it out. I grabbed a gallon jug of water. Where to pour the water, better not open up the oven -I saw "Backdraft". So I just poured the water over the stove hoping the water would run through the appliance and put out the fire. After I poured the water, I remembered that grease fires don't go out with water - what puts out a grease fire. Shoot, I should look that up.

By now, the soot was covering the back wall, the front of the oven, and 6 inches of floor. But the orange glow was gone. Carefully, I opened the oven. No fire. I opened the broiler, no fire.

I pulled out my pizza. It was dripping water, but the cheese was melted and it didn't appeared burnt. Shrugging, I put it on a cutting board, no use letting it go to waste.

There was soot everywhere, but I was hungry. The clean-up could wait. I cut the pizza- everything appeared ok, until I bit into it. My lovely pizza tasted like charcoal or at least what I assumed it tasted like. Sighing, I dumped the pizza in the trash. I looked at the blackness covering everything and decided since I couldn't eat I might as well clean.

It took me two days to clean up all of the soot - it was on the walls, the floor and oven. After the scrubbing - the house and the oven were better than new. And I haven't cooked a pizza since. And what caused the fire? I'm not really sure, there was a little grease in the broiler pan and a small piece of charred paper or maybe the oven just didn't like my cooking and thought it would be better incinerated.