Microwave oven fire!?!?!

[Audi Junkie]

yeah, so I'm cleaning up the kitchen and we have a bunch of parsley that will go bad if I don't process it, so I chop it and put in micrwave on a paper plate. 1 minute and the stuff is still soft, so it hit 2 more min and go into the basement and do some other stuff. I come back to 1/2 of a paper plate and 1/4 of my parsley left. The rest all burned to a black cinder.

I never had this happen and thought MW might only produce a fire in the most extreme conditions.

***?

 

[The_Jeff]

You obviously have never cooked popcorn at my office.

Seriously tell us more about the intent of this recipe... drying out? Microwaves aren't very good dehydrators IMO.

 

[Johnny]

You didn't stick your Accord in the microwave did ya?

 

[oilyriser]

parsley, eh?

 

[Pablo]

Special herbal. Tea.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

I had a teacher back in college (circa 1999) who collected some test papers after class. It was the springtime, and everyone had a cold across campus.
The story goes like this: I left the journalism building for about a 1/2 hour to go get lunch, and then returned to the whole place smelling like burned paper.
The crazy teacher had put ALL the tests in the microwave and turned it on, to kill all the germs all over the tests.

Needless to say, we all got A's without having to re-take them.

 

[Steve S]

Micro waves cause things to heat up and heat can lead to combustion.

 

[mpvue]

some show on the food network showed how a green grape will catch fire in the MW. you slice it all the way through except for a little skin holding it together. the electrolites cause sparks and fire.

cool stuff.

 

[01rangerxl]

I think the best thing to do at this point would be to put more stuff in the microwave to see what else burns. Get pictures or video.

 

[Reginald]

A long time ago, my wife set a hunk of Italian bread on fire in a microwave. The bread wasn't merely charred; it was combusting in the middle. Lots of smoke. We still joke about it.

 

[Whitewolf]

Originally Posted By: Chris Meutsch
I had a teacher back in college (circa 1999) who collected some test papers after class. It was the springtime, and everyone had a cold across campus.
The story goes like this: I left the journalism building for about a 1/2 hour to go get lunch, and then returned to the whole place smelling like burned paper.
The crazy teacher had put ALL the tests in the microwave and turned it on, to kill all the germs all over the tests.

Needless to say, we all got A's without having to re-take them.


Real smart teacher then!

 

[Shannow]

I was cooking some papadams a few weeks ago, and one of them caught fire.

Heard the microwave "surging", and looked out to see a lights display in the kitchen, as the flames interected with the microwaves (I think it makes a sort of plasma).

Wanted to repeat the experiment, but the noises were plain nasty.

 

[oilyriser]

You could get a modulation transformer from an old AM radio station, and put it in series with the 2 kv pulsating DC supply to the magnetron. Imagine the bubbling surface of a bowl of oatmeal giving off the sound of your favourite tunes.

 

[mechtech2]

Shannow - You need 'microwave safe' papadams.

[I am not even going to ask what those are.]