I’ve almost burned down my house once. It wasn’t as horrific as the Yishun HDB fire, but it was horrific enough to me.

Like any accident, we did not see it coming at all. All I was did was fry some bacon.

Instead of turning off the fire on the bacon grease-filled pan like my girlfriend asked me to, I accidentally turned up the heat, causing the hot grease the catch fire.

Woosh. Whoops. No problem.

At this point, the fire was about the size of an iPad, somewhat alarming but nothing life-threatening.

I thought to myself, “aiya, small fire. No point calling the girlfriend la, I’m a man. I can handle myself around house hazards.”

The pillar of fire

I then gingerly picked up the pan by the handle and quickly put it in the sink. I reached past the small flame to grab the faucet and flicked it on…

FOOSH.

A sudden heat wave hit my face. I actually blacked out for a split second.

A pillar of fire had shot out from the pan. It raced upwards and hit the ceiling (which was about 2.5 meters high), exploding outwards like a fiery umbrella above my head.

I remember someone, or something, behind me screaming. It was probably the girlfriend. Although in equal likelihood it could just as well have been the maniacal laugh of the Patron Demon of Kitchen Grease Fires.

The pillar of fire licked out as fast as it came, and we were left with the pan and the sink in flames.

The next few minutes were a blur. We threw towels on the fire and eventually put it out.

We were extremely lucky because miraculously, nothing else caught fire. The kitchen smelled like hell for a few hours, I had no more eyebrows, but we were okay.

I was lucky, but I could have easily lost more

Google told us later on that grease fires are a very real and common thing, and people die from these things. I got off very lucky.

Grease fires typically happen when you are inattentive and overheat cooking oil on a pot or pan. Incidentally, the 2nd most common cause of residential fires in Singapore is unattended cooking. Yikes.

We were lucky, but I can easily imagine that if our kitchen was a lot more flammable, say if we had been frying more things so there was cooking oil all over the walls, cabinets and countertops, the incident would’ve probably turned out a lot worse.

For real. Check out this video of a fireman attempting to extinguish a small grease fire with a CUP of water. You know it’s some serious sh*t because he used a cup attached to a 5-feet pole.

Here’s what you do instead:

Lesson 1: Put a lid on it

Remember science lessons in school? Fire needs oxygen to burn. So put a metal lid on the flaming pan and the fire will soon consume all the oxygen and burn out.

You also want to turn the stove off. Don’t move the pan to prevent spilling the burning oil and causing more accidents. Just leave the lid on the pan and let it cool.

Lesson 2: Have a proper house insurance

Luckily, our fire was not devastating enough to have needed insurance. But if it was, we would’ve been in a rough spot.

I don’t have that kind of coverage and I didn’t have that kind of money.

Yes, you may have basic fire insurance, but you might want to consider a comprehensive home insurance because basic fire insurance does not cover renovation and home contents such as furniture, personal belongings, and valuables.

This means things like your kitchen cabinets, shelves and counters are not covered. Meaning you’re not getting assurance from fires unless the fire is catastrophic enough to destroy HDB fixtures and fittings.

Sad.

One insurer you can consider is Etiqa (who is also the appointed HDB fire insurer.)

So, let’s suppose I burned off a lot more than my eyebrows. The fire spread and burned down a big part of my house. Tiq home insurance will provide me with:

• 24-hour emergency allowance: you can have Etiqa assess and give approval of a payout of $5000 cash if a fire renders your home uninhabitable. This sum of money will help tide me through the various difficulties like finding another place to stay for the meantime, getting food and new clothes, replacing my valuables etc.
• Coverage of personal legal liability: meaning if the fire from my home were to spread to other people’s house, the insurance will help me pay my neighbours’ damages. Yay.
• Coverage of debris removal: this is important. And there will be debris. Lots of it. Actually the onus is not on HDB to me clear out my home, I would actually have to pay for it. Knowing my kiam siap tendencies this would probably lead to me cleaning up the mess myself.
• Flexible coverage: you decide how much you want to be covered for, according to the value of your house/the stuff in your house.
• Tiq Home Insurance doesn’t just cover kitchen stupidities like mine, but also other aspects of everyday silliness you might accidentally commit, such as locking yourself out of your own home or occasional suay events like a thunderstorm causing a blackout.

So if I cannot solve my idiocy, at least I can solve the problems my idiocy may cause. Heng ah.

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This sponsored article by Etiqa reminded the writer not to be an idiot with home insurance.

If you purchase Tiq Home Insurance on Fridays using the promo code “JULTEIF”, you get an additional 5% discount (on top of the existing 15%) off on insurance premiums as part of Etiqa’s TEIF (Thank Etiqa It’s Friday) promotion.