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A sheet pan that's bigger than the pan on fire counts as a lid for fires!

Just gonna put a PSA here and say that every domestic kitchen should have a fire blanket on hand near to, but some distance away from, anywhere that there's a heat source. It should be within arms reach but if you have to reach over the flames to get it then that's bad placement.

Why a fire blanket?

Because they are cheap (much cheaper than fire damage or medical expenses - think of it as a form of insurance).

Because if you use one the correct way, you will shield your hands from the flames when you are using it.

Because, Marx forbid, if someone is on fire you will be able to smother the flames using the blanket.

Using a lid on a pot or a pan is good but it's only manageable if the fire isn't huge.

Remembering to use a baking tray of some description is good, if you remember to do it.

Baking soda is good, provided that you have enough on hand and you can distribute it onto the base of the fire and if the fire is small enough.

Putting a pan that is on fire into the oven to isolate the flames is good in theory but you have to ask yourself if you are going to do it slowly and calmly, with a steady hand, or if you're going to splash burning oil all over the place and thus multiplying the problem. (That's not a risk that I consider to be worth taking tbh and I know that I am like a semi-dissociated robot programmed for risk assessment in emergency situations.)

See, the thing is that it's hard to know how you'll respond in an emergency situation if you're panicking. And this is why I prefer fire blankets - they are big and red and labelled for fire usage. You don't have to stop in the moment and try or remember that life hack about using... baking powder? (was it even baking powder?? Oop, there's no time to Google it!) or anything like that.

I'm also a big proponent of having welder's gloves in the kitchen. I used to do a lot of baking using cast iron at very high temps so having that forearm protection and good heat resistance is ideal but tbh the other reason is that if I ever need to deal with a fire, I know I can don those gloves quickly because they're hanging up in my kitchen and they will afford me with a good deal of protection without buying any expensive gear or stuff that is purpose-designed for fire control.

Should you be playing with a kitchen fire just because you've got gloves on? No.

But if there's a big fire and you're trying to get a lid on the pot but the flames are just too wild to get close enough to, having suitable gloves that you can grab might make the difference in that sort of situation.

If you want to see someone reacting in real-time to an oil fire in the kitchen then this is a really good example of what can happen:

https://youtu.be/Rl2_axBNkrw

The person in that video was so close to disaster on two counts.

It's lucky that they didn't have much oil in the pan but moving it around when the smoke is so volatile that it's spontaneously igniting is super risky because this sort of fire is unpredictable and providing more oxygen to it could have caused the fire to expand rapidly, depending on the conditions (and really who is gonna be assessing this stuff in a situation like that?)

It's also pure luck that there wasn't water in the sink and that they didn't turn on the tap because it likely would have been game over for their kitchen.

I'd recommend checking out some videos on what happens when you add water to a grease fire and also those simulated house fires - shit goes from small but manageable to having choking amounts of smoke in like 30s, then in the next minute you're dealing with a situation where you want to evacuate yourself, anyone else, and your pets because everything is now on fire and your house is basically gone. When you're dealing with a situation that is liable to deteriorate extremely rapidly, you want to deal with it as quickly and as safely as possible because in those 15 seconds that you're fumbling around trying to get the baking tray out of the cupboard or you're ineffectually sprinkling the last teaspoon at the bottom of the baking soda container onto the fire, things can go from manageable to completely out of control.

There's a lot of things that I fuck with and, historically speaking, that I have fucked with. Two things that scare me more than most other things are botulism and house fires.

Glad you're ok! Sounds scary!