Announcer:
Live from KPRC, this is Local 2 News at 10:00.
M News Anchor:
They already know this, but one wrong move and a small flame on the kitchen stove can suddenly turn into a deadly inferno. We’ve seen a whole rash of these kitchen fires just in the past month, fires that could easily have been prevented.
F News Anchor:
So tonight, Local 2 investigator, Bill Spencer, shows you what not to do when a fire starts, and how one inexpensive product could literally save your home and your family.
Speaker 4:
Where?
Speaker 5:
It’s all on fire.
Speaker 4:
Where?
Speaker 5:
Sun Forest Apartments.
Bill Spencer:
Flames rip through an apartment complex in Lake Jackson. A woman critically burned in Montgomery County tried to put out a grease fire, and Westlake firefighters battling gigantic flames.
Firefighter:
She had had a grease fire that got out of control.
Bill Spencer:
Huge fires. All of them grease fires, all started simply by someone cooking on a stove top. It’s the number one cause of home fires in this country.
Randy Crim:
You have to add something to it.
Bill Spencer:
Lake Jackson Fire Marshall Randy Crim is on a mission to get the word out about grease fires after battling four of them in the last five months, including this one, which left a total of four families homeless. Now, we at Local 2 are teaming up with Randy and Lake Jackson Fire to show you exactly how fast and furious these grease fires can spread. Rule number one, whatever you do, never throw water on a grease fire.
Randy Crim:
Everybody ready?
Bill Spencer:
Just watch what happens.
Randy Crim:
One!
Bill Spencer:
When we put one cup of water.
Randy Crim:
Two!
Bill Spencer:
On one cup of burning oil.
Randy Crim:
Three!
Bill Spencer:
That one cup of water turns into 1,700 cups of steam and the flames explode everywhere. If you were standing right here, you’d have third degree burns. You’d be scarred for life. You might even be killed. What should you do?
Randy Crim:
You just take a cover or a pan like this and you can actually slide it over.
Bill Spencer:
Firefighters say smother the grease fire by sliding a lid over the top of it. Or you can pour baking soda on top of it.
Randy Crim:
Yes, ma’am. See, it just disconnects with the magnet.
Bill Spencer:
Or you could simply protect yourself, installing a device like this one. This is the StoveTop FireStop.
Randy Crim:
If this thing were to flare up, what this would do is it would activate and extinguish it like a regular fire extinguisher.
Bill Spencer:
Selling it just 50 bucks for two of them, the StoveTop FireStop mounts above your stove with a magnet. And when a fire breaks out, the firestop puts it out just like that using fire retardant power.
Randy Crim:
Once that fuse went off, it just spreads these things open and it drops the powder out.
Bill Spencer:
Saving your home, maybe even saving your life. Had anybody been in this kitchen when that fire started, what would have happened to them?
Randy Crim:
When they dump that water on that oil, they would have sustained second, third degree burns or what may have killed them.
Bill Spencer:
Fire Marshall Crim believes so strongly that these StoveTop FireStops can prevent fires like these, he’s actually obtained financial grants to install them in daycare centers, senior centers and senior citizens homes. If you’d like to buy one, they are available through distributors only. For a list of those distributors, just go to Click2Houston.com and click on the hot button. I’m Bill Spencer, KPRC Local 2.
M News Anchor:
When the weather…
