Едва на сковороде появилось маленькое пламя, как мама взяла огнетушитель.

This is a very common Russian pattern meaning hardly ... when, as soon as ..., or no sooner ... than.

So:

• Едва на сковороде появилось маленькое пламя, как мама взяла огнетушитель.

literally feels like:

• Hardly had a small flame appeared in the pan when mom grabbed the fire extinguisher.

The idea is that the second action happened almost immediately after the first one.

Because едва ... как works as a paired linking construction. The first part introduces the first event, and как introduces the main event that followed right away.

So the structure is:

• Едва [event 1], как [event 2].

That is why Russian places a comma before как here.

Because the subject is маленькое пламя (a small flame), and пламя is a neuter singular noun.

Russian past tense verbs agree with the subject in gender and number:

• masculine: появился
• feminine: появилась
• neuter: появилось
• plural: появились

Since пламя is neuter singular, the verb is:

• появилось

Because adjectives must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.

The noun пламя is:

• neuter
• singular
• here in the nominative case

So the adjective must also be neuter singular nominative:

• маленькое пламя

Compare:

• маленький огонь — masculine
• маленькая искра — feminine
• маленькое пламя — neuter

This is a very natural question for English speakers. In Russian, на сковороде is the normal idiomatic way to say in a frying pan / on the pan.

Even though English uses in, Russian usually says:

• жарить на сковороде — to fry in a pan
• что-то появилось на сковороде — something appeared in/on the pan

So here на is just the standard preposition used with сковорода in this kind of context.

Also, after на with location, Russian uses the prepositional case:

• сковорода → на сковороде

Сковороде is in the prepositional case.

The preposition на can take different cases depending on meaning:

• на + accusative = direction onto something
• на + prepositional = location on/in something

Here the flame is located there, not moving onto it, so Russian uses location:

• на сковороде — on/in the pan

That is why:

• сковорода → сковороде

It is in the accusative — it just happens to look the same as the nominative.

The verb взять takes a direct object in the accusative case:

• взять что? — to take what?

For inanimate masculine singular nouns, accusative is often identical to nominative:

• nominative: огнетушитель
• accusative: огнетушитель

So the form does not visibly change, but grammatically it is accusative.

Compare with an animate masculine noun:

• я вижу брата — accusative changes
• but я вижу стол — same form as nominative

Because the sentence describes a single completed action: she took/grabbed the fire extinguisher at that moment.

• взяла = perfective, completed act
• брала = imperfective, process/habit/repeated action/background

Here the story is about a specific event that happened immediately after the flame appeared, so взяла is the natural choice.

Compare:

• Мама взяла огнетушитель. — Mom grabbed the fire extinguisher.
• Мама брала огнетушитель. — Mom was taking / used to take the fire extinguisher.

The second one would sound wrong or at least much less natural in this context.

Not always. Едва can mean different but related things depending on context.

Two common uses are:

1. barely / hardly

   • Я едва успел. — I barely made it.

2. in the pattern едва ... как

   • Едва он вошёл, как все замолчали.
   • Hardly had he entered when everyone fell silent.

In your sentence, it is the second meaning: as soon as / hardly ... when.

Russian word order is much freer than English word order. The neutral English order would be:

• маленькое пламя появилось

But Russian can also say:

• появилось маленькое пламя

This often sounds natural when introducing a new thing into the scene — like there appeared a small flame.

So the sentence structure helps present маленькое пламя as new information.

Grammatically, Russian word order is flexible, but that version sounds less natural here.

The original:

• Едва на сковороде появилось маленькое пламя...

sounds smoother and more idiomatic, especially because it introduces the flame as a newly appearing event.

Russian often prefers this type of order with verbs like:

• появиться — to appear
• возникнуть — to arise
• послышаться — to be heard
• раздался — rang out / was heard

So while other orders are possible, the original is the most natural storytelling order.

The basic form is появиться.

It means:

• to appear
• to show up
• to come into view
• sometimes to arise

In this sentence:

• появилось маленькое пламя = a small flame appeared

This is the perfective verb появиться, which fits well because the flame appeared as a single event.

The imperfective partner is:

• появляться — to be appearing / to appear regularly

In Russian, мама can often mean mom / my mom, depending on context.

Russian frequently omits possessives like my when they are obvious:

• Мама пришла. — Mom came. / My mom came.
• Папа работает. — Dad is working. / My dad is working.

So in this sentence, мама naturally means mom or the mother in the story, even though Russian does not explicitly say моя мама.

Both relate to fire, but they are not always identical.

• огонь = fire, flame, blaze; a broader everyday word
• пламя = flame, blaze; often more specifically the visible flame itself, sometimes a bit more literary or vivid

In this sentence, маленькое пламя works very well because it emphasizes a small visible flame starting up in the pan.

So:

• маленькое пламя = a small flame
• маленький огонь would sound less natural here

Sometimes in Russian, similar sentences can be built without как, but едва ... как is a standard and very natural pattern.

For learners, it is best to remember the full structure:

• Едва ..., как ...

That will reliably sound correct. Even if you later encounter stylistic variations, the version in your sentence is fully normal and idiomatic.

Russian does not have a direct tense system equivalent to the full English contrast between appeared, had appeared, took, had taken, and so on.

Instead, Russian usually expresses the sequence of events through:

• context
• aspect
• conjunctions and linking words such as едва ... как

So the order and relationship are clear from the structure itself:

• first the flame appeared
• then mom grabbed the extinguisher immediately

Russian does not need a special past perfect form to show that.