/sci/ - Science & Math

so the other night i came home from the bar and put some wings down on the stove; some of the of the hot sauce from wings leaked into the tinfoil under electric burner. When I came down this morning i saw what happened and cleaned up the tinfoil as best i could. Then i went over to my dishwasher and got my frying pan from it. Normally i hand wash it but i wanted to se if I could get the new dish washer to save some time. When I took it out it didn't seem greacy to the touch and looked clean enough so i put in the stove top and heated it. As i did it started to smoke a bit and some smoke came from under the burner as well, i figured it was just some residue burning off. It lasted longer then i expected but I waited and eventually the thin trail of smoke died out. Then i dropped a half stick of butter in the pan like i normall do to fry my fish.
Immidiately the pan burst into flames.
I wasn't sure really what to do so i turned off the stove but it kept getting higher and I was worried it would catch my cabnets on fire so i tried to take it over to the sink but the air to flame made it get super fucking big and i realized when i got my paper towls over there where in the sink and they would catch if I put it in.
I didn't really know what to do i just held the ban in the center my kitchen as the flame burned out then i put in the sink and cooled it with water...
What the fuck happened?
Why the fuck did it just randomly catch on fire like that??
It wasn't the fucking heat of the pan, i've melted butter quick on it plenty of times before with no issue;
what the fuck?