I was finishing a jar of extremely hot peppers (7 pot primos) that I had fermenting on Thanksgiving day. I made a hot sauce with them and cantaloupe. I had them in a pan at a low simmer to meld the flavors. The problem was the steam coming off was potent as hell. It filled the house when everyone was arriving and coughing from the hot sauce in the air, me included. We had to open all the windows, dig out the fans to get it out of the house, freezing everyone in the process.
I forgot to turn off the stove with some pork and sauerkraut on low heat, and went out drinking. Many hours later I came back to a smoke filled house, with a pot filled with solid charcoal that ended up in the trash because I just couldn’t get it clean enough. I had to trash a couple things in the cabinets above the stove, because I couldn’t get the smoke taste out.
More recently, I preheated a pan too much to sear a steak. I always wondered what kind of idiot starts a grease fire, now I know. The avocado oil took about 5 seconds to ignite, and it ended up destroying a splatter screen I’d set on the pan from the rapid temperature change. Luckily I remembered to cover the fire to put it out.