White Rock’s fire chief says there’s a lesson to be learned from a kitchen fire that brought crews to a third-floor apartment Thursday (Jan. 21) evening.
“The overall message is you never store anything on the stovetop,” Chief Ed Wolfe said Friday.
Wolfe said firefighters were alerted to a blaze at the 1561 Vidal St. complex at around 8:30 p.m. It was reported when the tenant of the unit returned home to a smoke-filled suite, he said.
Apparently, a box of cooking pots had been stored on the stovetop, and when placed there, one of the knobs was accidentally turned on.
“And then the owner or the tenants left the residence.”
Wolfe said the stove and some surrounding appliances were damaged. There were no injuries, however, the resident was displaced for the night due to smoke damage.
Wolfe said it was “very lucky” the fire was not worse. It’s a scenario crews often come across, he added.
“Typically what we see is people say, oh, they don’t do any cooking, they don’t use their stove, so they use it as counter space,” he said. “But the reality is that that’s what happens. You put a box down there, you put something on there, and it inadvertently turns the stovetop on.
“It is easy to do, we see it quite often.”
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