Image not from story (Wikimedia Commons/Public/By St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Emergency services in a Southside Virginia area responded to an explosion at a residence late Thursday evening only to find a gun stored in an oven as the unlikely culprit, according to a statement.
The owner of the home in Chesterfield reported the oven's fiery explosion to the Chesterfield County Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS), the agency's statement revealed.
"When firefighters opened the oven to investigate, they found a handgun inside," the agency said via the statement.
"It turns out, someone turned the oven on with the gun inside, the weapon heated up, and five rounds went off," the statement continued.
No one was injured, the agency said, "but the situation could have turned out much differently."
Storing anything in an oven predisposes homeowners to the risk of a fire or some other worse outcome when the oven is switched on, as homeowners were liable to forget that they stored items there in the first place, the agency warned.
Firearms should be stored in a gun safe, the statement concluded. (RELATED: Passenger Accidentally Discharges Gun In Atlanta Airport, Injures 3)
The statement elicited a staccato burst of various reactions online.
"Bang Bang Shrimp," wrote a commenter, garnering laughing emoji reactions.
Another, wondering what the homeowners might be involved in, wished the police would search the residence for potentially more firearms stored in odd places.
"How do you turn that claim in to [sic] the insurance company???" another wondered sarcastically.
"Notice that the gun is either facing front or back, not side to side," another wrote, reacting to one of the two pictures shared by the EMS showing the position of the gun partly melted onto a grille. "Someone is very lucky not to have been shot."
The second picture showed the oven's glass window blown to smithereens.
"Darwinism at its finest!" exclaimed one, while another flatly confessed they only showed up for the comments.
Bullets get spontaneously discharged at around 400 degrees, according to OnlineTexasLTC.com, an online firearm education and training company.
A 2024 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study spanning eight states revealed that between nearly 20% and nearly 44% of firearm owners stored at least one firearm loaded. About half of them did not store their loaded firearms under lock and key. "[I]n at least 25% of homes in which the respondent reported having a child or adolescent aged ≤17 years in the home and a loaded firearm, at least one loaded firearm was stored unlocked," the study revealed.