A horrible kitchen accident I am a master student studying in the UK. Last week I came across a fire accident when I was cooking rice with the microwave oven pot in the kitchen. The horrible story started like this: I washed the rice and then put it into the pot as usual. About 3 minutes later, I heard a weird sound from the microwave oven, so I opened the door to put the pot in place and made it keep working. After another 3 minutes, I smelled the smoke from the microwave oven suddenly. Therefore, I opened the oven door again and found the pot was caught fire! I thought the microwave oven would explode if I close the door, so I kept it open. Luckily, it is near the sink, so I was trying to put out the fire with flowing water. Finally, I made it. As I am living in university student accommodation, there are maintenance staff helping us. I reported the issue to one of them. I wondered why this accident happened and the staff said he did not know as well but promised to change a new one in a day. After calming down, I started to clean the spot and think back the details. I assumed there were two reasons why this happened. On the one hand, there was something wrong with the electric circuit of the microwave oven. On the other hand, although the pot is specially designed for a microwave oven, the outside surface is made of plastic that is easy to burn. Anyway, fortunately, I was ok.