T'was the night of the Alabama/Auburn game.  The family thought a heaping plate of chicken wings was just the right meal to consume while cheering the Tigers on to victory.   :-)

As I had done before, I put about a gallon of oil in our deep fryer pot, set it on our gas burner/grill/smoker on our back patio, and lit the burner to get it warmed up.  I carried on in the house and did other things for a while.

Some time later, I went out to the burner, stuck a thermometer in the oil, and hey, it's pretty hot, I better hurry up and put the wings in.  I went into the kitchen, put the wings onto a plate, came back out to the burner, and the pot of oil was on fire.

Fortunately, the burner is about a foot and a half from the siding of the house and the flames, standing about 12 - 14 inches tall, were not threatening the house.  No problem, thought I, we'll just smother the flames and do something else for dinner.  So I turned off the gas and got a large pot lid to (gingerly) put over the pot of flaming oil.

Unfortunately, sitting in the pot, was the strainer basket and its handle interfered with the seal of the lid.  Removing the basket was not much of an option.  What was going to do with a basket on fire, dipping flames everywhere I took it?

Next idea:  Use an old towel to smother the flames.  The towel conformed fairly well around the basket handle, but not completely.  It started catching on fire.  Okay then.  Remove towel and put it out.

Time to try the fire extinguisher.  No problem.  Never actually used one before, but it couldn't be too tough.

First up:  Kitchen extinguisher.  El cheapo Wal-Mart variety, ABC rated. Squirt.  FOOOM!  Huge fireball heads for the sky, fire is sprayed toward the house.  I thought for sure that you had seen it in your neighborhood.  Our neighbor, on the other side of the street, on the other side of the house, did.  He came over to see what was going on.  Hmmm.  Try that again.  FOOOM! Maybe there's something wrong with that extinguisher, let's go get the good one from the garage.  Squirt.  FOOOM!  Uh oh.  Now what?

Okay.  It's time to admit we're licked.  Let's call the fire department. Dial 911.  "Look, nobody's life is in danger, the house is not in danger, we just need someone to come show us how to put this fire out.....No, really, it's not a big deal....Just send a fireman over to extinguish the flames.....Yes, that's right......Okay, thank you."

About five minutes later a hook and ladder comes ripping through the neighborhood, siren blaring, honking that damn horn.  Pulls up to a screeching halt in front of the house, and two men get out with full riot gear:  jacket, pants, boots, gloves, helmet, oxygen system, etc.  The neighbors were quite amused.

The first thing the fireman does is blast it with his extinguisher. FOOOM!  Hmmm.  That wasn't supposed to happen.  Squirt.  FOOOM!  (at least *I* got this far without all that fireman training)

Head scratching time.  Ah ha!  So the fireman steps back and sprays the extinguisher up in the air and the foam settles down like snow on top of the pot of oil, extinguishing it.  Gotta make a note of that one.

The fireman hung around for a while until the oil cooled down, we gave them a plate of cookies, and they left after spending about 10 minutes in our front yard filling out paperwork.

We gave up on wings and went to Taco Bell to pick up dinner.  On the way down our street, we passed WAAY 31 news driving towards our house. Hopefully, they weren't expecting an interview.

The next day, a casual acquaintance that lives on the other side of the neighborhood rode by on his bicycle with his family and asked when they next cook out was going to be.  I figured everyone knew about this by now.  No, I haven't tried smoking anything (other than the house itself) yet.