Self-Cleaning Oven Stirs Up Smoke Scare On Vera Court

The Madison Fire Department was initially dispatched for a possible structure fire after someone reported smoke coming from a Vera Court apartment.
 
When Engine 10 arrived, several people evacuated the building, and one woman ran up to the firefighters to say the smoke was coming from her apartment. She explained that she’d turned on the self-cleaning feature on her oven a half-hour earlier.
 
With the oven unplugged, firefighters tried to unlock the oven but its locking mechanism wasn’t working. They used a tool to get the oven door open and found the bottom to be very dirty.
 
The occupant says she’s lived in the apartment for about 6 months and hadn’t cleaned the oven before.