The Unforgettable Fire

We had an intersting adventure today. I was in the kitchen, cooking, because that is generally what you do in a kitchen, when my roommate Alicia joined me. She also began cooking and set a pot of water on the stove to boil. This is usually an uneventful procedure, however, in our house, things that get spilled on the stove don't necessarily get cleaned up. When we turn on the elements it usually smells a little bit, sometimes there is a bit of smoke, but there is not often much action in our kitchen. However, today, there were flames. That's right, FLAMES. Not the Calgary Flames, but holy crap, that would be a happy day if Jarome Iginla, Mikka Kipprusoff, and Dion Phaneuf showed up in my house. Anyways, fire. We had a fire. Alicia and I remained very calm. In fact, neither of us moved for a good 30 seconds or so. Then she commented very calmly, "hmm, that element is on fire." And then she picked up her pot and just watched the flames a bit. So I, also mesmerized by the growing fire, suggested, "the pot lid?" and she said, "yeah, maybe try that." So i picked up the pot lid and put it over the fire. But when I lifted the lid there were still flames. So I put the pot lid back down. And picked it up. The flames were still there, a little bigger this time perhaps. Tried the pot lid again. And again. And once more. It was a bit loud, me banging the pot lid on the stove and it wasn't even putting out the fire, so I decided I would maybe abandon the pot lid idea. So there I stood, with a blackened pot lid in my hand, there my roommate stood, with a pot of water in her hand, and both of us still very calmly watching the growing flames. So I suggested, "baking powder?"
And Alicia said, "baking powder? really?"
And I said, "yeah, in case it's a grease fire!"
And she said, "well sure, try that,"
But we couldn't find the baking powder. She still had a pot of water and I still had a pot lid and it didn't occur to us to put either of them down. But eventually, we found it and I dumped some on the fire. Nope, not a grease fire. So the baking powder actually increased the size of the flames.
So at this point I began to get slightly concerned about our abilities to put this fire out. So I yelled, kind of loudly, "FIRE!". And our other roommate came downstairs to see what the commotion was about and what was causing our house to fill with smoke.
Anyways, after all this excitement, the fire came to a quiet and very uneventful end. This is to say, it burned itself out. So no hot firefighters had to come, but at least it all ended without any damage.