15 Of The “Dumbest” Ways People Have Set Their Houses On Fire

11. Dryer Lint

“Based on the stories from relatives, the answer is by allowing ten years worth of dryer lint to accumulate inside the machine until it just bursts into flames. It was not an isolated case.” — The_First_Viking

12. Popcorn Failure 

“In college a girl in the dorms was making popcorn which (not sure how but somehow) caught fire in the microwave. She didn’t want to get into trouble for it so she grabbed the flaming bag of popcorn and threw it into the nearby trashcan. Then proceeded to cover the fire with paper towels to “smother” it. She actually thought it would work. It did not work. I came back exhausted after work to find the dorm building surrounded by firetrucks.” — HatchlingChibi

13. Bathtub Oil Fryer 

“My father was a Boston Firefighter for 30+ years. One of his more memorable stories was a foreign family who had ripped up their cast iron bathtub, and built an open flame underneath the tub. They used the tub as a giant oil fryer. Naturally this didn’t work out very well and the house caught fire. To add to the insanity even more, the family absolutely refused to let my dad and his coworkers in without taking their boots off. Which of course, they couldn’t agree too.” — two-stumps

14. Bees

“Was in my local paper, turned out to be my friends older brother. He tried to smoke out bees in the loft and set fire to the insulation in the loft and burnt the whole house down.” — De_Rossi

15. Gallons Of Oil 

“I was a chef before I was on a volunteer fire department for a bit and this was at a restaurant down the street from my old one. Cooks at this restaurant forgot to plug the drain in the deep fryer. So what happened was they put oil in a fryer, which drained immediately, right before lunch, turned on the empty fryer, and that’s when the coils caught fire. So not only did they spill 5 gallons of oil, burn a fryer, fill a restaurant with smoke and kill the service day, this was the second time it happened.” — stuckonpost

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Patricia Grisafi

Patricia Grisafi, PhD, is a freelance writer and educator. Her work has appeared in Salon, Vice, Bitch, Bustle, Broadly, The Establishment, and elsewhere. She is passionate about pit bull rescue, cursed objects, and designer sunglasses.