By Michael N. Ciampo
How often have you heard the familiar transmission “smells like food” over the radio while beginning your on-scene size-up? Responding to a report of smoke on the first floor, we arrived to find nothing showing. After we entered the lobby, our noses instinctively told us that there was an odor of food burning somewhere in the building. (Certain smells or odors will be engrained into your senses, like burning food, burning paper, and melting plastic.) A tenant down the hallway opened her door and yelled, “Down here!”
As we made our way into the apartment, the tenant said she had burned some food and wanted us to check that everything was okay. We notified the chief that we were investigating a “food on the stove.” The tenant remained outside as we ventured into the apartment and noticed a slight haze hanging just below ceiling level. We proceeded down the hallway to the kitchen and had to sidestep a small table and some chairs that were blocking the hallway. We also had to go through a set of plastic hanging beads that were in the archway entrance to the kitchen.
Entering the kitchen, we saw a small pot in the sink, full of water, with something resembling burnt food stuck to the bottom. The haze in the room seemed to increase, and a new odor emerged, one of burning paper. One of the members opened the window to ventilate the room, pulling it down two-thirds from the top and lifting the bottom up one-third. (This method is often preferable because the smoke accumulates more at the ceiling. Plus, opening the bottom often lets the top pull a draft, increasing overall ventilation.) Another firefighter quickly checked the garbage can, because many people often throw the burnt material in the garbage, which can lead to a secondary fire. There was nothing in the garbage, so we checked inside the oven and broiler—still nothing. We also lifted the top lid of the stove but found nothing. One member looked under and then behind the stove and saw a smoldering newspaper lying in between the wall and the stove.
Since the kitchen was galley style (small and narrow), there wasn’t much room to immediately pull the stove out from the wall without moving some items around in the kitchen. Also, because of overhead cabinets, we couldn’t insert a tool behind the stove to “fish out” the smoldering newspaper. So as we moved a rolling cabinet, the garbage can, and a bin of pots and pans, a member took the water extinguisher and placed his gloved fingertip over the small plastic nozzle on the end of the can to produce a coarse spray pattern. He discharged the water extinguisher with a short blast (a quick squeeze of the handle) and, without any warning, fire erupted from behind the stove. Quickly, he stuck the nozzle behind the stove and gave it a full three-second blast with the tip unobstructed. The fire quickly ran up the wall behind the stove with even more energy.
Within a second or two, the cabinets ignited as we scattered to move out of the narrow kitchen. Immediately after backing out of the kitchen, we called for a hoseline and informed the chief that we had fire extension in the kitchen.
Regrouping and startled by the changing conditions, we all masked up in the narrow hallway. Then one firefighter moved the chairs and small table, which would block the hoseline’s path, and another firefighter began to use the extinguisher on the cabinets. As the water hit the cabinets, the flames seemed to intensify and grow, and blue flames were evident on their surface. The fire was now rolling across the kitchen ceiling, out the open window, and started to melt the plastic beads, which we pulled down. Luckily, the fire was on the first floor; the engine company performed the hoseline stretch quickly and got the line there in time to prevent the fire from extending any farther.
After the fire was knocked down and overhaul operations were completed, we critiqued the fire to try and find out how something so small could escalate into something uncharacteristically large for a simple food on the stove incident. Our first question was, How could the newspaper react so violently with water and cause the fire to erupt from behind the stove? The tenant said in an interview that she was deep frying the burnt matter in a four-inch pot that she knocked over. She had run out of paper towels and used the newspaper to soak up the oil on the stove and floor. Somehow the paper ignited and it fell behind the stove. So we answered that question: An oil fire does not react well to water being applied to it; the flames will only intensify. The next question was, How could the cabinets have ignited so quickly, rapidly extending the fire with blue flames? We found out the cabinets had just been covered with a fresh coat of polyurethane a day or so before. Applying water to the cabinets made the material bubble, hiss, and react violently, also increasing the flame spread.
Following are some other considerations for this type of call:
- Search the entire apartment. Recently, we found a burned civilian in a rear room. It is not uncommon to find people overcome by smoke, especially the elderly or an intoxicated individual.
- Don’t take someone’s word that everything is okay. Go to the location and check for yourself. Look for discarded material that could be smoldering in a garbage can.
- Remember to don your mask when you first get that taste of a cheap aluminum pot melting. Don’t become complacent just because you’ve responded to numerous food on the stove calls before. Wear your gear and bring your tools. Each situation is different!
MICHAEL N. CIAMPO is a 24-year veteran of the fire service and a lieutenant in the Fire Department of New York. Previously, he served with the District of Columbia Fire Department. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the lead instructor for the FDIC Portable Ladder H.O.T. program. He wrote the Ladder chapter and co-authored the Ventilation chapter for Fire Engineering’s Handbook for Firefighter I and II (Fire Engineering, 2009) and is featured in “Training Minutes” truck company videos on www.FireEngineering.com.
