what's on fire?

i was not feeling well saturday night...not well at all...i ate something that just didn't sit right with my soul...so we didn't go to church on sunday and i slept in because i hadn't really slept at all that night.  i went out of the bedroom and walked right past the kitchen...and noticed that there was smoke coming from a pan on the stove...not only was there smoke there, but the apartment had a faint smell of burning...i immedeiately asked brian what was burning and he was like oh...crap!  he shut off the stove (there was a pan with nothing on it...great) and opened the windows...but he was standing like 5 feet away from it...so my question is how much of our apartment will need to be on fire before brian realizes it?