In Louise Erdrich's "The Leap," the unnamed narrator describes what happened when she was seven and her house caught fire. The fire started by the kitchen stove. The cause of fire is not definitively known, but several theories are listed. The narrator believes the fire was most likely caused by standing ash. The narrator's father is described as "forgetful around the house and perpetually exhausted from night hours on call," and as a result it was apparently very common for him to empty material that he believed to be ashes from the stove into containers made of wood or cardboard. The ashes might still have been capable of catching fire and cardboard and wood are both highly flammable, so a flaming box is considered the most likely cause of fire. Another potential cause of fire is that creosote built up and caught fire in the chimney.