Mr. Neville’s done this a few times. He’ll put a glass dish on a burner that he forgot is on, and BLAM.
My wife melted one of these a few years ago. I smelled something, went to the kitchen, and the damn thing was actually on fire, and hunks of metal slag were on the burner and stovetop.
I take comfort in everyone else’s “Hey! I did that too!” stories - been there, done that, shattered some Pyrex and melted some spatulas - but this is by far my favorite. Thanks for sharing with us.
Melted the blinds over the sink from the heat off my flaming pan of popcorn as I attempted to douse it. The pan survived, but I needed new blinds.
Now, my dad: he set the kitchen on fire when the oil in the deep fryer ignited. The deep fryer did not make it. Nor did the curtains, the cupboards and much of the kitchen. My dad was a fireman, by the way.
Since the thread’s evolved into this, I’ll share. . .
Picture it: suburbs of Baltimore, mid-1960’s. We’d all gone to Annapolis to visit my grandmother, except for my sister S, who was, I’d say, 14 or so at the time. When we get back from Grandma’s house, there is a fire engine in the driveway, another one at the curb, and smoke pouring out the kitchen windows! Yikes!
Turns out that S had been in the basement watching TV (it was the only one in the house at the time), when she decided she wanted some onion rings. So she goes upstairs to the kitchen to make onion rings, turning the TV waaaaaay up so she can hear the TV. So she’s in the kitchen, over a pan of hot oil, when she hears something from the TV about how Herman’s Hermits are up next!!! OMGPonies! Herman’s Hermits! Peter Noone is sooooooooo cute! Must watch! So, back downstairs she goes, happily grinning at the TV while the oil catches the cupboards over the stove on fire. :eek:
Fortunately, no one was hurt, and my folks had homeowner’s insurance and after that, we got all nice new cupboards for the kitchen! 
Back in the 60s, my mom forgot a pressure cooker that was rendering grape jelly. It had a little emergency pressure relief valve but that didn’t work; the darned thing exploded and hurled purple stains all over the walls and ceiling. Fortunately no one was in the room at the time.
I saved our downstairs neighbor and us some possible serious problems or death back in about 1985. They had been on vacation in the states (this was in Germany) and just returned late that day. I was headed for the bedroom for the night and caught a faint whiff of . . .something hot. Backtracking through the living room with my nose in overdrive, I went into the kitchen and saw smoke roiling up outside the kitchen window.
I ran downstairs and pounded on the door, then started kicking it. I was just about to haul back and try to kick it open, when I heard a shriek from inside, some commotion, and then she came to the door. She had put on some chicken to fry, then sat down on the couch. Jet lag overcame her and she fell asleep, the oil ignited and merriment ensued. Luckily, she didn’t burn down the entire building with us in it.
Well, this isn’t very related, but there is a stove involved. We were living in a farmhouse with a wierd old stove that was half wood-burner and half gas. My roommate left his Bic lighter on the wood-burning part of the stove. Suddenly the lighter started spewing a 2 foot jet of flame and twirled around on the stove like a pinwheel. My friend and I were like “whoa!!!” and ran into the mudroom. My roomate stared at it in awe.
From the looks of it, we could start our own kitchen cemetery. 
I boiled the electric kettly dry more times than I care to admit.
Only one or two small fires thank God.
good thing you only took out one pot with this. If you took out the pot AND the toilet, you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in…
(please move along, now)
I’m praying the non-stick skilled I ruined a year and a half ago by searing a roast on it was my turn. Even though I subscribe fully to Alton’s “non-stick pans wear out eventually anyway, buy cheap ones” rule, I still hate the idea of having to replace a pan just because I had teh dumb.
Advice:
IME, there’s no need to boil the water for this method to work. Just soaking the dish in hot-from-the-tap water for long enough should do it.
Story:
One year on the family ski trip, we made brownies. After cutting a few out to eat right away, for some reason we stuck the pan back into the oven. Later that night, my uncle started pre-heating the oven for something else, until we all started to smell burning plastic. The brownies were utterly ruined, much to my dismay, and the knife that had been left resting in the pan had its handle melted onto the edge of it. Dad put the pan outside the front door of the condo and my brother and I had lots of fun dumping armfuls of snow onto it.
The boiling really helps, though, by physical agitation.
Usually, what I do to guard against this is, if I have something actively happening in the kitchen (a heating element on, bread rising, whatever), I leave the kitchen light on. If I’m about to go to bed, or leave the apartment, or whatever, I’ll notice the light on and remember whatever it is. I’m not sure why I didn’t do that this time, though.
I came home from work one day to find my apartment windows and drapes open. There was a pot on the stove, and apparently the cat had jumped up and used the burner knob as a foothold. He turned the burner on and filled the house with smoke. The manager went in and turned it off, and opened the windows.
Why so eager to get the pan clean so quickly? I’ve never heard of anybody boiling a dish to get it clean quicker; an overnight soak with some Dawn has solved every dish mess I’ve ever encountered.
I’ve destroyed a couple of pans and several plastic kitchen things (see how much I cook? They’re called “kitchen things”) and just the other day I ruined a whole loaf of bread by leaving it in plastic on top of the stove while I heated up pizza…
But this boiling business is a new method of destruction for me.
I once boiled my roommate’s pot down to the nonstick burning off the bottom. Luckily it was a cheap goodwill POS and $4 later it was fully replaced.
The boiling to remove heavily burned on materials was a trick learned back in culinary school for me… after I forgot about mirepoix that I had left to sweat while I did other prep work. The chef was not gentle about pointing this out to me, but luckily it only resulted in charred veggies and a a battered ego.
Congratulations! Now you can get yourself a cast iron pan instead.
Cast iron is not completely invulnerable to this. A few weeks ago, I washed a pan (scrubbed out with no soap, of course), set it on a burner for just a minute to get it perfectly dry, and wandered off long enough to burn every bit of the seasoning out of it. No real damage except the stink and the time to re-season, and the bruises from kicking myself.