NEENAH, WI (WTAQ-WRN) — With life-threatening injuries coming from a cooking fire in the Fox Valley last week, the Neenah-Menasha Fire Rescue is reminding the community how to keep their families safe.
The Neenah-Menasha department responded to about four cooking fires within a seven-day span last week, according to Assistant Chief Adam Dorn. Considering cooking fires are the leading cause of fires across the U.S., this number may not be surprising. But what is unusual is that severe injuries came from these fires, said Dorn.
Dorn said at least 45% of a father’s body has second- to third-degree burns after he took away a pot from a child responding to the stove fire. Hot oil covered the father’s body when he fell down the stairs with the pot.
Another person also sustained injuries in a cooking fire last week.
To prevent fires, Dorn has some simple advice: watch what you heat and stand by your pan. And if a fire does happen, he said putting out a cooking fire is actually pretty simple.
“First thing is, whenever you’re cooking, keep the lid of that pan next to you or next to the cooking surface because if something does catch on fire, you can put the lid on the fire, put it on, take the pan away from whatever the heat source is — wherever that is on your stove — and turn that heat source off,” explained Dorn.
Additionally, he urged people to make sure their smoke detectors are working.
“Over the last number of years, the number of home fires that we’ve had with deaths in them has decreased dramatically, and in the last couple of years, it’s seen a huge rise in the number of deaths,” said Dorn. “So, why is that? We don’t know. As a fire service, we don’t know. But we do know that where there are working smoke detectors, we haven’t had any deaths in homes yet.”
Last year, more than 50 people died in house fires in Wisconsin. This year is set to top that.
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