Department provides fire hydrants to prevent kitchen fires

A kitchen fire on February 19 may have destroyed at least some units in the complex. However, the Danville Fire Department installed stove-top fire protection in all 133 homes to prevent a possible disaster.

Resident Jason Whissonant was in an outdoor smoking area when a neighbor alerted him that the apartment fire alarm had gone off. He immediately headed to his unit.

“I opened the door and saw flames,” Whisonant recalled in an interview Friday afternoon at the Cortland Street complex off Riverside Drive.

He had just returned from God's Warehouse, a local food pantry, where he delivered boxes of food to neighbors and then took some home for himself.

He placed two boxes on the stove, not realizing that he had accidentally turned on the burner on one of them. The box placed on the burner caught fire.

When the fire broke out, the flames reached one of two fire hydrants hanging from the hood and began extinguishing the fire. A can-shaped device opened and potassium bicarbonate was sprayed onto the fire, extinguishing the flames.

The fire rekindled, but was quickly put out again.

But if it weren't for the fire hydrant when the fire first ignited, “we wouldn't be sitting here,” said Stephen Wilmoth, the apartment complex's maintenance director. Some units, and perhaps the entire facility, may have been severely damaged.

Since purchasing stovetop hydrants and installing them in holiday villages and other complexes in spring 2022, the department has prevented or prevented about six kitchen fires, said Shelby Irving, director of the department's community risk reduction division. He said he stopped mid-way.

“We saved six times,” Irving said in an interview Thursday morning at the fire department's headquarters on Linn Street.

The department purchased 2,000 firebreaks with a $132,184 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Irving said officials also purchased a fire extinguisher simulator to use in training firefighters.

“The number one cause of fires in the United States is unattended cooking, and that's certainly true in Danville,” she says. “We're trying to reduce them.”

City of Danville spokesman Arnold Hendricks said the fire department responds to about 40 structure fires a year. About a quarter of that amount is due to unattended cooking, he said.

She said Irving and the department canvassed neighborhoods and installed firebreaks in primarily rental properties, including Heritage Towers, Cardinal Village, Ingram Heights and Airside Apartments.

The focus was on ensuring fires were contained in homes occupied by elderly people and children.

“Kids might try cooking,” she says. “The landlords were receptive to the idea.” [for the fire stops]”

Irving said older residents are also particularly vulnerable to kitchen fires because they tend to move more slowly. Sometimes I forget about my own cooking.

“Some older adults are on medications,” Irving said. “They'll fall asleep.”

She demonstrated how the equipment will be installed in the kitchen of the fire department's community room Thursday morning.

The stove flame stopper is attached magnetically under the hood above the stove. When a fire starts from one of the burners, the flame reaches the wick at the bottom of the fire stop, which opens and allows potassium carbonate to fall onto the fire.

The fire department will install two of the devices on residents' stoves for free. Anyone, regardless of income or other circumstances, can purchase by calling the department at 434-799-5226 or Irving directly at 434-857-3409.

Fire hydrants cost $75 per pair if ordered online, Irving said.

For those living in rental housing, “you'll probably want to get permission from your landlord,” Irving said.

Each device is installed in the area of ​​the hood between two of the four burners: That way, Irving said, the fire hydrant allows him to spray into one of the two burners hanging above it.

Even if the fire is extinguished and the kitchen fire is extinguished, residents should still call 911 so the fire department can replace it, she said.

Irving also warned that “embers could get into the cabinets and start new fires.”

Holiday Village manager Ken Seet said a fire that broke out in a room at the complex in 2016 was extinguished by fire protection equipment purchased by Holiday Village.

After a near-miss in Wisonant's unit, Wilmoth instructs residents not to place boxes on stoves. He expressed his gratitude for the efforts to extinguish the fire.

“We are very grateful for that grant,” Wilmoth said. “I think that's great.”

Sheets noted Wizonant's selflessness in delivering food to his fellow residents, who are primarily elderly and disabled.

“He's a Good Samaritan,” Sheets said of Whissonant, who has lived at the complex for 13 years.

Even if fire prevention efforts saved her, Wisonant ultimately had to pay about $1,000 to replace and clean the stove and hood, Sheets said.

“I learned a very expensive lesson,” Wissonant said. “I don't even put shopping bags on it.”

The fire hydrant that extinguished his fire was replaced with a new one.

“Jason is going to be a fire safety ambassador,” Irving joked.