Things we have learned today:

[azurelunatic]

Because my chain of bad decisions is educational and perhaps amusing:

Clean the oven regularly.
Wipe the oven down after cooking that juicy roast.
Check the oven before preheating to bake frozen pizza.
Smoke billowing out of oven vents, not normal.
Smoke out of opened door, ditto.
That box fan is efficient.
Wipe the oven down before commencing auto-cleaning cycle.
Flame in auto-cleaning cycle is not normal.
The locked oven door prevents stupid moves.
In an oxygen-poor environment, the fire must needs go out.
Once a fire has expended all its fuel, it must needs go out.
The cleaning cycle takes a minimum of 2 hours, by which time one's eaten something else.

Comments

[amadi]

To that end: when you see that something's baked over and left a spill on the oven floor, put some salt or baking soda on it while it's still hot. When the oven is cool enough to wipe out, it'll be much easier, as it'll be a congealed mess, rather than a spreading, liquid, potentially greasy mess.

[pseudo_tsuga]

Ha ha, oh dear. I can see the story unfold just with these directions.

[azurelunatic]

Really quite evocative. Though I did not panic quite as much as it probably sounds -- my first reaction upon seeing the flame in the oven was "Hmm, I wonder if this is normal," and Googling, where I learned that it was not normal, but probably not dangerous. Then I wandered over to keep an eye on it through the window of the locked oven door, and marveled at how it was leaping in the air.

[pthalo]

It is true for electric ovens that they need to be regularly cleaned. Gas ovens actually cook better when dirty.