How I Almost Burned Down an Entire Village

Superhero movies often have the same trope: the hero has to fight a villain that was partly created because of them and this villain wants to destroy the city (or the world). If you apply this trope to the story I'm about to tell you, then I'm a true hero!

The story takes place in British Columbia, in the summer of 2018. All across the province, there was a fire ban because of all the wildfires raging on. I lived in a village close to the Okanagan desert (yes, Canada has a desert, get over it!) which was pretty close to the fire. We were so close that we got informed of the possibility of maybe evacuating the town at any time because of the wildfires. One morning, the air was so smokey that I could've left my salmon outside and have smoked salmon by the end of the day. It was so smokey that half of the town wore face masks to protect their lungs from the smoke (in a pre-COVID world, it was unusual).

One day, the smoke was gone but the possibility of a wildfire in the village was still very present, I decided to heat up some tater tots in my toaster oven (the studio I lived in didn't have any place for a conventional oven so I was stuck with a toaster oven). I wasn't paying much attention to the food but at one point, I looked at the toaster oven and saw something unusual happening... "Hey, I don't remember turning the light on!" I told myself. Being the careless teen I was, I never bother to wash the oven after I cooked something in it, but I should've because it wasn't a light I saw, it was a fire generated by all the grease and the crumbs stuck on the heating element!!!

My primal instincts kicked in, I unplugged the oven but the fire was still going on (and it was burning my tater tots, damn it!). I quickly opened the window because my first reflex was to throw the damn oven out of the apartment. I was about to do it until the last minute when I remembered that an uncontrolled fire could've been devastating for the area. I didn't want to be guilty of starting another wildfire so I changed my plan and threw the oven in the sink (thank God it was a toaster oven because otherwise, it wouldn't have fit in the sink). I opened the water until the fire went out.

The apartment was smokey... So smokey that I wished that I had a face mask to protect my lungs against the smoke. Nevermind those tater tots, I was under so much stress that I wasn't hungry anymore. It took nearly 6 hours until the lousy smell disappeared. I was a cook back then, and my next-door neighbour who worked with me could smell the burning scent coming from my apartment. From this day forward, everyone at the restaurant kept teasing me about this unfortunate incident, but I frankly prefer being teased for burning an oven than being known as the guy who started a wildfire by accident.

So there you have it! I'm a hero! I fought a villain (the burning oven) that was partly created by my fault (I didn't wash the oven) and that said villain wanted to destroy the town (by starting a wildfire). But no need to thank me... Just leave a like on my story and it'll do the same ;).