Our Thanksgiving was a little too exciting

So the Missus had been cooking since 11 a.m. for the big dinner at 5.  The Missus and I plus Young Son, Young Daughter, and six dogs took the traditional Thanksgiving day walk along desolation highway, aka the San Fransquito canyon abandoned road, a nice three mile walk in balmy temperatures and sunny skies.  We got home to find Older Son already there watching football.  As the day move along, I cut and split some wood to get into the whole Thanksgiving atmosphere while the turkey cooked on.  As the time got closer to dinner time Young Daughter commented that the kitchen seemed to be getting a bit smoky.  The Missus thought some turkey juice might have spilled into the oven.  A couple minutes later the smoke alarm went off and I went to the kitchen to see what was going on.  Black smoke was pouring from the stove and the kitchen and family room was rapidly filling with smoke.  I opened the oven (the Missus had already removed the turkey) and saw that it was on fire!  Grease from the turkey had pooled in the bottom of the oven and ignited!  I closed the door, turned off the oven and looked again.  Still burning, but now even more so!  I grabbed the fire extinguisher (always have one in the kitchen!) and put the fire out and closed the door.  It came back to light again!  Three times I blasted it and then used another extinguisher from another room before it was out. I was just about ready to call the fire department.  I had shut off the gas to the stove at the wall and pulled the stove away from the wall to prevent it from charring the cabinets and the wall.  It didn't get that bad fortunately.

Young son ran to get fans from the shed to blow smoke out of the house and the Missus hustled the food away from the smoke and fire extinguisher powder that went everywhere.

It was a somber meal after that.  I was shaken thinking how close it came to a real disaster.  Fortunately all that was lost were the rolls and stuffing balls that were in the stove when it went up in flames and of course maybe the stove itself.  I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the mess.  Tomorrow the Missus will call a repairman to examine the stove to see if it was damaged by the fire.  I took it apart and all looks ok but who knows what may have been damaged.

lesson to all:   watch out for grease fires and keep fire extinguishers handy!