Family Pet Accidentally Starts Fire In MI Home While Owners Were Asleep: Officials

ALMIRA TOWNSHIP, MI — A family pet accidentally started a fire Tuesday morning in a northern Michigan home while the owners were asleep, according to fire officials.

The incident happened early Tuesday morning at 2:30 a.m. at a home on Burnt Mill Road in Almira Township, which is just west of Traverse City, according to fire officials.

Fire officials said the pet accidentally turned on the oven's self-cleaning function, which then started a fire in that area of the home.

While fire officials didn't say what type of pet started the blaze, a man saying he is the owner posted on the fire district's Facebook page to set the record straight, noting that it was his cat that managed to turn on the oven's self-cleaning feature.

"It was my house and my cat managed to push both of these buttons," the man said, posting a photo of the oven in question and circling the "start" and "self-clean" buttons, which were inconveniently next to each other. "It’s definitely a poor design," he added. "I would have just woken up to a really clean oven, but I cooked bacon yesterday morning and put the pan in the oven because I didn’t want the cat getting into the grease. In hindsight, a greasy cat would have been much better."

Smoke detectors woke up the homeowners, who then used a fire extinguisher to put out the small blaze before it spread to other areas of the home, according to fire officials.

There were no injuries in the fire, according to fire officials.