Last week our bake element fried out. My roommate yelled that we had a fire, but when I opened the oven to look, it wasn't so much a fire as the element going haywire. It was red hot in one spot with some small flames on it, and as I watched it started sparking. The sparking and hot spot slowly travelled along the path of the element, even though we turned the oven off. We tried pulling the oven out from the wall to unplug it, but we didn't have any luck, so I went in the basement and flipped the circuit breaker.

Once the element cooled down I took a look; it's cracked in a line that the sparks travelled. Right where the hot spot originally was (along with the flames) I saw a bunch of charred spots. I asked my rommate, and she said that a pan boiled over on the element but she never cleaned it off. I told her that can cause the elements to fail, and I assume that was the origin of our problem.

I've already ordered a replacement bake element, and I don't think I'll have any problem replacing it. However, I'm going on vacation at the end of the week, so it'll be at least 2 weeks till I can get to it. In the meantime, we'd really like to be able to use the stove. I haven't flipped the breaker back on since the night of the "fire." Is it safe to do so, in order to restor power to the cooktop, as long as we don't use the oven? And if so, should I leave the bad element in there, or should I remove it?

Thanks for any insight you can offer!

That is what I would do before trying to use it before replacing the bake element.