A London woman remains in critical condition following an overnight kitchen fire in the Pond Mills area.
Firefighters were called to an apartment building on Scenic Drive, east of Adelaide Street and Thompson Road, just after midnight Thursday. The fire was extinguished before fire crews arrived, but a woman in her mid-30′s was taken to hospital.
Upon further investigation, fire officials say the cause of the blaze was cooking oil that caught fire. Rick Jefferson is the Public Information Coordinator with the London Fire Department. He says the victim was cooking French fries when oil caught fire in a pot on the stove.
“Unfortunately, the woman took the pot to the sink and turned on the tap. When water hits oil, it turns to steam and expands greatly. Basically, the steam carries the flaming oil with it and it’s an explosion.”
Jefferson says the woman managed to alert the building superintendent, who extinguished the blaze before fire crews arrived.
“The woman was badly burned. She did manage to go down the hallway and wake up her son in his bedroom. At some point an alarm in the hallway got pulled. The woman was running down the hallway and was able to notify the superintendent of the building. The superintendent managed to put the fire out before we got there. At this point the patient is in critical condition, but is expected to survive.”
According to Jefferson, cooking fires are the number on cause of fires in London homes.
“Mostly it’s unattended cooking, so we want to stress to people to never leave your cooking unattended. If you do happen to have a small fire in a pot on the stove, the best action to take is to turn the heat off to the burner, put an oven mitt on and put a lid over the pot; that takes the air away from the fire and the fire will go out.”
In case of an emergency, Jefferson adds that you should never attempt to take the fire outside.
“We never ever want to try to run the fire outside in the pot, you could drop flaming stuff inside your place and it could catch fire. Never ever, ever put water on a grease or oil fire. If you do, it will explode and you will get burned.”
The damage to the apartment is estimated to be $3,000.
Source: Woman Remains in Critical Condition Following Kitchen Fire | (CFPL AM) AM 980
