A chef featured in a cooking segment from ITV's This Morning show narrowly escaped catching on fire while putting on a demonstration from his own kitchen from home.
Australian celebrity chef John Torode was showing home viewers via the show's video link how to make McDonald's popular McMuffins and didn't realize he had set his towel on an open flame behind him.
The 54-year-old turned his back on the towel and continued talking to co-hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield when it suddenly burst into McFlames.
Willoughby shouted at the oblivious chef:
"John, your tea towel's on fire!"
Schofield joined in with the alert and exclaimed:
John, behind you! Your cooker! You're on fire!
But the restaurateur, didn't hear the warnings and kept focus on his culinary task by presenting the muffins to the camera before inserting them into the toaster.
He himself would've been toast if he hadn't turned around when he did.
Torode finally noticed the lit towel and went to retrieve it as he casually told his co-hosts, "Thank you, thank you."
Charred pieces of the towel fell apart as the chef brought it over to the sink and turned on the faucet to put out the flames.
By then the smoke had filled the room and triggered the kitchen's fire alarm.
Seeing their guest unharmed, Willoughby and Schofield burst into fits of laughter after initially watching in horror at the mini conflagration.
The incident demonstrating what not to do when making McMuffins sparked amusement over on Twitter.
The close call also served as a reminder to "keep tea towels away from the hob."
With many videoconferencing segments proliferating TV programs in lieu of studio-filmed shows, the segment was quite the adrenaline rush.
People were on the edge of their seats and found themselves shouting at their TV and computer screens.
The cool execution of the towel pick-up had this user in stitches.
Fortunately, this didn't happen.
As the chef shutdown the fire fiasco, Schofield remarked:
"Oh God, I love this show so much!"
Same.
Every kitchen should have a fire extinguisher. You can get one here.
