One of the most common places for a house fire to start is in the kitchen, according to Winkler Fire Chief Richard Paetzald, and he says it is often a thing that can be prevented, with the right amount of preparation and know-how.
“It doesn’t matter where you go—up north, down south, here, cooking is something that’s common to everybody."
So, to set people up for success in the kitchen, and to help avoid what can become devastating news to a family, Chief Paetzald shared some of the things people can do to be ready if a fire does start inside the heart of the home.
The right tools for the job
Any tradesperson will say that the tools you have can make a job infinitely easier or incredibly frustrating. As Paetzald tells it, that also applies in the kitchen.
“It’s picking the right tools before you cook, and having the right lid. Usually bad things happen [with] how people extinguish the fire... They put the wrong extinguishing agent, which just spreads it all over the place.”
In a high-stakes situation such as a fire inside the home, that right extinguishing agent can mean the difference between a small, contained fire and a flame that grows out of control.
He continues saying that prepping ahead with an oven mitt and a tight-fitting lid next to the cooking area is a solid way to be ready in case anything does happen to get out of hand.
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What to do
If the unfortunate does happen and a fire starts atop the stove, that is when those tools prepped earlier come into play.
“Put the oven mitt on so you protect your skin, grab the lid, put it on. And turn the heat off.”
Chief Paetzald says that cutting off the flames' access to oxygen via the lid, as well as giving the element a chance to cool down, are key here. Letting the flame die down fully, and not removing the lid, should be enough to deal with the fire most of the time.
“If you take the lid off thinking, ‘Oh the fire is out’, well as soon as you take the lid off, if it hasn’t cooled down, the vapours get out and make contact with the element again and ignite and you start all over again.”
When in doubt...
If, in the heat of the moment, a person is unsure whether or not the fire is fully contained, what sort of extinguishing agent to use, or just every thought seems to have leapt out of the head into the ether, Paetzald says they can always call emergency services.
“That’s what you pay taxes for... Police and Fire, we come, and you don’t get billed. We’d rather make sure that [it] just stays a small fire, versus making an assumption that turns into a big fire.”
For more information on fire safety, first aid, or to find out how to make a fire safety plan in the home, visit the Winkler Fire and Rescue website.