Northwest Iowa — This is National Fire Prevention Week. The National Fire Protection Association or “NFPA” is in charge of Fire Prevention Week each year. They say this year’s campaign is, “Serve Up Fire Safety In The Kitchen.”
Orange City Fire Chief Denny Vander Wel tells us that they often deal with kitchen fires, and they often do a lot of damage.
(as said:) “Fires in the kitchen can get out of control so quick and it’s usually because people forget they have something on the stove or in the oven and we’ve also experienced in the last while even on our department with an oven that actually went into self-cleaning when they actually were baking something. It’s not what you want to hear because I know there’s people that have their ovens and stuff set for cooking when they’re gone and so on but things can malfunction.”
He reminds us that while water works for putting out many kinds of fires, sometimes it’s the worst possible idea. He says water thrown on a grease or oil fire will turn to steam and atomize the oil, which will instantly flash to a flame tower.
(as said:) “People don’t think of that and put a glass of water and throw that on top of a pan with grease or whatever. It’ll actually just make it almost like explode just go violent there for a couple of seconds. You know other things that have happened… plastic stuff left in the ovens. Plastic gets on burners. The burner gets actually bumped on and that will start a fire and usually, by a stove, there are usually paper towels or potholders, whatever and that’s where you’ve got heat and get that going… it goes from there to your cupboards and everything else. So a kitchen fire can really get out of control in a hurry.”
Vander Wel tells us that normally they’d be doing fire prevention talks in the schools and having an open house. But this year, of course, things are different.
(as said:) “This COVID-19 has kind of put a crunch on a lot of stuff. We have a program that we call Adopt a Firefighter which puts us in the school once a month in the second grades. Now that’s even been put on hold. We’ll be doing it… some of it electronically with the computer and stuff. But as far as school visits, no, the only one that we have scheduled right now is going to go the daycare and that will be all done outside and our open house we normally have is not going to happen this year.”
Vander Wel also reminds us to have two ways out of every room at home, at school, or anywhere else. He says people should practice their escape plans even at home.
To learn more about fire prevention, visit www.firepreventionweek.org and www.sparky.org/fpw.
