FIRE!

I had a bit of a surprise last night. I started my dishwasher and went to do homework in the next room. After a while I noticed the dishwasher was making unusual sounds, so I went to check it out. I saw sparks flying out from the bottom of it. I quickly went over to turn it off. I opened it, thinking maybe something got stuck in the bottom. I figured opening the door had solved the problem. Well, the smell was awful, so I left the dishwasher door open and began opening my windows. I came back into the room and heard a plop. I noticed there were flames under the door. The nob from the dishwasher had fallen off and the wires were on fire. I quickly threw water on it, not remembering where my extinguisher was. I thought that was the worst of it. Then I looked in the hole where the nob had been. Major flames coming out. Freaking out, I called a neighbor asking her to run over with her extinguisher. She came in and extinguished everything. Thank goodness for good neighbors. (We later found my extinguisher in a closet I never open because it has the water heater in there....who ever uses that closet much?) Needless to say, my apartment smelled HORRIBLY. Melting plastic is not a smell that I enjoy. I opened all my windows and put fans in most of them. I turned off breakers so that it wouldn't accidentally start on fire again. I called my landlord, hoping he wouldn't somehow find me to blame for the incident. I spent the night curled into a tight, freezing ball, hoping and praying nothing else would catch on fire. All I kept thinking was "good thing I have rental insurance". Also, I was so grateful that I hadn't started it and left, as I have sometimes done in the mornings. It could have taken my whole building down. A small mercy.

Below are some of the pictures of the aftermath. It doesn't look as scary as it really was.

Here you can see the hole the fire was coming from.

This is what my floor looked like after the water and extinguisher did their things.

This is the nob that fell to the floor in flames.

The next two are of the inside of the door. You can see where it was starting to melt. (And what made the awful smell