A plastic drawer left on top of an electric hob forced residents to evacuate their flats in Rosemount, Douglas, in the early hours of Sunday.
Firefighters were called to the property at around 1.30am, after a resident was woken by a smoke alarm.
On arrival, crews were met by the occupants of all the flats within the building who had evacuated due to the strong smell of smoke throughout the building.
Firefighters were instructed to enter the building to establish the cause of the fire. Crews quickly identified the cause to be a plastic drawer that had been left on top of a switched on electric hob.
The plastic had melted, giving off a lot of toxic fumes and smoke, but had not developed into flame.
The hob was switched off and the drawer removed from the heat, leaving the crews to ventilate the property.
Leading firefighter David Dallimore said: ‘Thanks to a maintained fire alarm system, the occupants of the property were woken and alerted to the dangers. This enabled them to evacuate the premises and dial 999 to call the Fire and Rescue Service.
‘This allowed the service to respond quickly to deal with the incident before the fire had a chance to develop.’
He added: ‘We have responded to a few incidents of this kind recently and would like to remind people that it is bad practice to leave anything sitting on a hob as it is surprising the number of hobs that get switched on by mistake.’