Artist's Kiln Generates Small Fire In Dining Room

A glass-making artist was using an oven kiln to fuse glass over the weekend, a piece of equipment she’s had for about a year. Although she placed fire board underneath the kiln to protect her wooden dining room table from the heat generated by the kiln, it wasn’t enough to protect the furniture this time.
 
Around 6:00 Saturday evening, she noticed a “hot smell” coming from the area and used a small extinguisher around the base of the kiln in hopes of cooling it off. Later, she and her daughter were upstairs and smelled smoke coming from the dining room. They went downstairs to find flames coming from under the kiln and called 911.
 
Engine 4 put out the fire and removed the kiln from the home before taking out the dining room table as well. Ladder 1 ventilated the property for several minutes, and the occupants were able to return to the home.
 
The artist speculated that the temperature of the kiln reached nearly 1400 degrees, but she says she’s used it on the dining room table in the past without incident.