Super Power

Posted September 2026

I have a super power.

I attract fires.

Not on purpose.

It first happened when I was six. I went to a Catholic grade school, which meant lots of religious ceremonies indoctrinating young people into the faith. One such ceremony lined up us first graders along the communion rail at the front of the church, facing the altar. We were handed white candles with a white paper ring midway down to catch the wax. The candles were lit, the kids pious, listening to the priest speaking Latin words we didn’t understand. I glanced down at my candle after several minutes. The paper ring was on fire! I hadn’t done anything to make that happen. I stared at the flames in awe, too shocked and clueless to stop it. A nun came up behind me and blew out the fire, taking the then-melted candle away. The other kids looked at me in wonder, their candles upright and bright, their paper rings pristine, while my hands were empty.

My next fire came when I was nineteen. I was a newlywed and wanted to surprise my young husband Scott by grilling hamburgers outside on the hibachi. He was in the service, stationed in Texas, and we rented a trailer in a park off base. He didn’t ever grill—that was my job. I brought the hibachi out to the tiny patch of grass by our front door, loaded it with charcoal, being careful to only hit the briquettes when I squirted the lighter fluid, and threw the match into the middle of them. They lit up and I let them burn, watching. When the flames went out, I put the hibachi cover in place.

I was putting the meat on the grill when, somehow, the grass around the hibachi caught on fire. I grabbed the hibachi cover and snapped it over the heavier flames, stomping out the embers. Whew. When my husband came home from the base, he asked about the black patch in the lawn. I shrugged and handed him a burger.

In my later twenties, then married to my second husband Marc, I was frying onions in oil, the burner on medium. I used a paper towel to mop up a drop of oil on the counter. When I reached over to the spice cabinet to get the garlic powder, flames shot up on the stove top.  The crumpled paper towel near the burner was on fire. I snatched a box of baking soda and smothered the flame before it crept any further.

Shook, I cleaned up the mess and started chopping fresh onions, the others sodden under the glob of baking soda. To my relief, the counter was fine.

When in my forties, my husband John and I moved into our first co-owned house. His mother had passed and left him a small inheritance. John wanted to spend some of it on a new television. Giant box screens a foot deep and the length of a wall had just entered the market. I thought them ugly and extravagant. I could see the money going into house repairs. But it was his money. “Fine,” I said, “but only if I get a new stove.” The one we had was a cheap, sad electric, past its prime. He agreed.

The stove I slobbered over at the store was a forty-eight inch Wolf double gas oven, a shiny beauty I couldn’t help but pet every time I walked by it once it was in my kitchen. Even sixteen years later.

When John passed away, I took up bread baking with a vengeance, ever appreciative of the glorious stove’s performance. One of my bread books had a lovely picture of a cheese and nut filled roll that I’d wanted to try for years. It was a complicated recipe, but one Saturday, I cleared the decks to attempt it. I made the dough, which was behaving as it was supposed to, rising beautifully. I started on the filling. The instructions said to put a pan of pine nuts under the broiler. I’d never roasted nuts under a broiler, but trusted the recipe. No time was specified, only “when they turn fragrant . . . .”

Let me mention that I lost my sense of smell when I was thirty from deviated septum surgery, one of the unlucky odd statistics this happens to.

I popped the pine nuts under the broiler into the larger of the two ovens, figuring it would take maybe five minutes, and went to clean up the cat barf on the living room rug. When I rose and turned to carry the soiled rag back to the kitchen trash, I faced a thick cloud of smoke.

I opened the oven door. Flames shot out. I closed it again, trying to think, my mind racing. Baking soda or salt wasn’t going to cut it. And no way could I reach inside to remove the pan. I turned off the oven and turned the exhaust fan on full blast. Think, Katherine, think.

A fire extinguisher. I knew I had one in the laundry room. I’d never used one before and tried to quickly read the directions. The whole situation felt surreal. I peeked back at the stove. The flames hadn’t gone away. I grabbed the fire extinguisher, clumsy and terrified, trying to figure out how to work it. When I managed to get powder shooting out of the nozzle, I opened the oven door, aimed, and fired, waving the powder left and right and up and down.

Forget the mess of pine nuts. My concern was only about my stove.

When I knew the fire was dead, I closed the oven door and looked at the clock. I had promised people those damn rolls. I left the mess and ran to the store for more pine nuts.

These got toasted on the stove top, me watching and stirring them constantly. Luckily, the other side of the oven worked, so while the rolls baked, I worked on the powdery residue that clung to the floor, counters, and the larger oven. Once I cleaned up the oven’s charred interior sides and wiped up the gray matter on the bottom, the larger oven didn’t look too bad. And the outside showed no damage. But the larger oven wouldn’t turn on. I felt devastated.

Fortunately, I was able to get the larger side repaired, but it took weeks between finding a Wolf repairman, his diagnosis, his ordering of parts, the arrival of parts, and the install. The upper interior showed a scar, a slight pocking from the high flames, but once repaired, the oven worked.

Three years later, I retired and moved to a small old house halfway across the continent. The kitchen was cramped and dated, and after two and half years of living there, I had the kitchen remodeled, including the purchase of a modern, high-end double electric stove. To add more counter space, I bought a pricey stovetop cover called a “noodle,” which is a large, handled wooden tray.

My stove is very sensitive. A slight brush against a knob ignites a burner. I’ve coordinated the fan to turn on when a burner is active so I know if it’s been accidently bumped on when I had it off. Since I can’t smell, and from past experience, I try to be extra cautious.

A few weeks ago, though, I was unloading the dishwasher when my phone dinged. I was so engrossed in reading the email and constructing a response that I didn’t pay attention to the background noises. A strange crackling got my attention. What on earth were the cats doing? When the sound of the exhaust fan registered, I turned around and found black smoke pouring out from under the noodle. The damn burner had turned itself on. I must have grazed the knob when putting away a dish. I flipped off the burner, and with heavy hot pads, lifted the noodle. The underside glowed with active embers. Black goo from the fabricated wood and rubber underpads dripped everywhere.

My new kitchen! Not even a year old!

I couldn’t set the noodle down or I’d catch the floor or counter on fire. I sure couldn’t extinguish the fire in the sink due to the noodle’s size. I ran to the patio, set the cover outside on the concrete, and turned on the hose, soaking the noodle thoroughly.

I left it outdoors, gutted in a large ring from the burner. Back inside, my new stove was a mess, the goo crusted over the ceramic stovetop, the countertops, and the floor. I felt sick to my stomach.

But no time to grieve.

I attacked the new flooring first with a wet sponge, then the new countertops, scrubbing away the thick, black, syrupy gunk. I sighed with relief when it came up, sticking to my fingers and the sponge like wet glue. All I could think of was the cost or even the possibility of replacing the stovetop. Although I had little hope, I used a special razor blade made for ceramic stovetops to work off the black crust that covered it. Some came up. Some didn’t. I coated the stovetop with the polish made for it, wiped, and attacked once more with the razor blade. Forty minutes later, I stood back. Getting better. I could see three-fourths of the burner. I polished and scraped, polished and scraped, and after another half hour, the stove looked good as new. And the burner worked fine. Snoopy happy dance.

I can’t say I appreciate my superpower. It’s not like I can don leotard and cape and be sought after and applauded by the public for my contribution to the community, unless you are a repairman. But, I’m a firm believer in everything happening as it should, even the bad things. I don’t know why (mostly) cooking fires have followed me, but I tell myself that each one taught me something: trying to think through panic, being resourceful, learning to operate a fire extinguisher (they are now in every room), learning to use the lock feature on the new stove’s burners (it pays to read the manual), and another lesson in acceptance of life’s events.

I’ve learned there are solutions to problems, to think on my feet, and that outcomes usually aren’t as bad as anticipated.