Speaker 1:
Coverage you can count on. This is Fox 2 News.
Speaker 2:
They are the most common and often the most devastating fires that firefighters and medics respond to.
Tom:
And one wrong move can make a bad situation much worse. They are the fires that start in the kitchen and just a couple of days before one of the biggest cooking days of the year, Fox 2’s George Sells joins us with the Fox Files story you need to see. George.
George Sells:
Well Tom, this is a story about the kind of fire that hurts more people than any other. Similar reports have been done in other cities, but this is the first time St. Louis firefighters have taken part. It comes with a cautionary tale, as well as a look at a product that might save you from a lifetime of pain.
George Sells:
This is what happens when you pour water on a grease fire. A terrifying moment that changed Yolanda Johnson’s life. The simple act of lighting a stove. It took Johnson six months to be able to do that again. Her scarred arms provide a clue why.
Yolanda Johnson:
I don’t know what happened or how it happened, but my sleeve caught on fire and it just went… The flame… And my shirt caught on fire, but I automatically took the shirt off but I automatically… Then my friend was with me so and she automatically through the water in the skillet. It went everywhere. It was back, up and back.
George Sells:
And all over you.
Yolanda Johnson:
And all over me.
George Sells:
Water made that grease explode. 40% of Yolanda’s upper body was covered in third and even fourth degree burns. Fourth degree is when the burn gets through the skin to muscle and bone. First there was shock, then…
Yolanda Johnson:
Once the ambulance got there, that’s when I felt the first pain, and that’s the worst pain you will ever feel.
George Sells:
Kitchen fires are the cause for more than 40% of fires in this nation and nearly 40% of the injuries too.
Dennis Jenkersen:
Any type of burn injury is a horrific injury.
George Sells:
And fire chief Dennis Jenkerson has seen plenty.
Dennis Jenkersen:
It’s normally a pretty substantial injury once we get there.
George Sells:
All because when you see this, your gut says do something.
Dennis Jenkersen:
Go up time, turn the gas off, grab, hit the pot by accident and spill it all over yourself. That’s the instinct. And this is going pretty good. This is hot. People are going to make mistakes in this situation and that’s when we get called in and they’re laying to the floor.
George Sells:
How bad is it? Just watch. A fully protected firefighter literally wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. This one was 12 feet.
Dennis Jenkersen:
We’re going to expand that little cup of water about 25,000 times.
George Sells:
Into a ball of fire.
Dennis Jenkersen:
If you get a fireball inside a kitchen and if you’re close to it your clothes, your hair, you’re burnt bad.
George Sells:
Even seven years later, as you can see watching this is hard for Yolanda.
Yolanda Johnson:
Yeah, this brings it back. All I remember was trying to put it out, wanting to put it out. How are we going to put it out? Thinking, we need to put it out.
George Sells:
We’ve been taught to turn off the burner and cover it, but what about taking human reaction out of this altogether? This little canister is called the StoveTop FireStop. You saw what happened when water hit the fire. Now watch what happens when this little gadget, the Firestop is triggered. With a flash of chemical the fire is all but gone.
Yolanda Johnson:
Wow! Yeah, I’d have loved one of those.
George Sells:
And there are at least a dozen municipalities around the country that now require these in some homes, usually apartments, or are considering it. Here in St. Louis fire officials would like to see a UL product certification for the Firestop before making an endorsement, but they can see a benefit.
Dennis Jenkersen:
It might be one of those things that you don’t have to worry about. You don’t have to grab, you don’t have to activate. It’s automatic. If you have a fire extinguisher in your house, you have to remember to grab the fire extinguisher, pull the pin, aim it, and hopefully you won’t aim it directly into the grease and splatter the grease all over.
George Sells:
For Yolanda, it was about learning to deal with scars.
Yolanda Johnson:
The scarring is… You have to deal with the scarring inside and out.
George Sells:
And finding the strength to cope with her own tragedy.
Yolanda Johnson:
It’s just not there at the time you needed it to be there.
George Sells:
We have a lot of information on our website, Fox2now.com including raw video from these fires and an extensive photo gallery as well. And if you are interested in the StoveTop FireStop, we actually have a contest on our website to give a few of them away. You have from now until Sunday to register. Just head to Fox2now.com and look for it on the Fox Files webpage. George Sells, Fox 2 News.
