Our dryer in the basement caught on fire this evening. Thanks to the preps, I had several working fire extinguishers and DH put it out before it spread.
The house was FULL of smoke, my daughter's friend was staying over and it triggered her asthma, we had to take her to the emergency room. I'd have had a spare inhaler for her if they didn't require a prescription.
I don't know how DH did it, there was so much smoke and he was in the thick of it for a long time putting the fire out, God gets all the credit for the house still standing and DH not dying of smoke inhalation and my daughter's friend being OK after a breathing treatment.
I went out and bought a new fire extinguisher to replace the one we used up, and tomorrow I'll get new batteries for all the smoke detectors, the one that alerted us to the fire was the one hard wired into the burglar alarm system.
So praise God I still have a family and house, and thanks to Him for leading us to prep, because those fire extinguishers saved the house. There was even smoke pouring out of the garage, and it's not even really connected to the basement!!

Same thing for us a year ago. I put it out but without a large extinguisher it could have gone badly. I had one large one, I'm guessing 4X the size of one you would normally see in a kitchen.
There was so much smoke the neighbours smoke alarm went off. I was hacking it out of my lungs for days.

Tiny bits of lint builds up inside the dryer casing and eventually things are right for a fire. It's easy enough to open up the dryer and clean it, I just never did.
Try putting a screwdriver under the top cover and pry up. After pulling the plug of course. Many older ones open like this.

DH has replaced the heating elements several times, he cleans it out every time.
What really caused it was a cheap pair of fleece pants from walmart that disintegrated in the dryer. The lint trap was cleaned out but the lint from those pants filled it up and it was all inside the dryer and blocked the airflow. I've never heard of such a thing in my life, a pair of pants disintegrating in one washing/drying!
Stuff made in China is downright dangerous.
I've since heard that nothing produces smoke like a lint fire. It's true, the basement was full of thick smoke and it filtered up through the rest of the house. I made DH keep talking to me so I'd know he hadn't passed out from the smoke, I was so worried.
We had a fairly big extinguisher, plus the smaller one my son was using, and when I replaced it Saturday night after the fire, I got the commercial sized one. When I get more money I'm getting two more big ones, one for each level, and maybe some small ones for the bedrooms.
If we had had to call the fire department, our preps would have been destroyed from the water damage. God was really looking out for us, I feel so safe knowing He hears my prayers and takes care of us.
We had to drop our insurance, so this would have destroyed us. All our smoke detector batteries were dead, if the hard wired one hadn't gone off we never would have known until it was too late.
I will NEVER let the batteries die again.
We learned quite a few lessons from this.

TG was a mess ...so sorry this happened...

but your story has reminded me that one my batteries are dead in my upstairs smoke alarm and I should get those today and two my fire extinguishers are outside in my shed I should get them brought back inside here..add this to my kelee do list