I had the same thing happen about ten years ago... My wife was home alone and had just cooked something in hot oil. She turned off the stove and left the room to grab an incoming phone call. Apparently -something- happened to cause the oil to flash fire and it got out of control pretty fast. She very stupidly went back into the kitchen and smothered it with some minor lung damage and no burns. The kitchen itself was half destroyed (one wall, all cabinets burnt up, stove destroyed, etc.). Fire department scolded the crap out of her for not just leaving and calling 911.
Long version short, it was an apartment building and we had renters insurance. The landlord claimed it was 26k$ in damage. State Farm paid for it in full and promptly lowered our monthly rate by another 15$ a month.
That's quite a story, she's lucky. But she did the right thing, that fire could have caused much more damage and injury had she not stopped it.
