On Sun, 9 Jan 2011 23:19:16 -0800, "Bob F" wrote:

Ricky wrote:
Is a fire in an electric oven likely to totally ruin the thermostat?

I had a fire a few days ago, put it out with an ABC fire extinguisher,
and when I cleaned up the mess, I removed the bottom element and
checked it for continuity. It was good.

Yet neither it nor the top oven element go on, even when set on Broil.

The top burners work fine.

OTOH, the fire was on the other side of the oven from the thermostat,
about as far away as it could be; and I could only find one hit in
google that referred to this and even it said just that the thermostat
wouldn't be accurate anymore. And nothing else got physically
damaged except the oven-door gasket and the plastic handle on one
cheap table steak knife right above the fire.

What do you think?

The appliance parts place told me, after I did what you did, that the proper
response to an oven fire was to close the door, not use a fire extinguisher.
FWIW.

Yup! Many years ago (approaching 40) my wife had an oven fire so threw in a
box of baking soda. I asked her why she did that (the oven was never the
same). Her:"Every time I opened the door it flamed up." Me:"Don't do that."