An elderly man had a lucky escape after a fire in his kitchen in Lichfield Street on Thursday 8th March.
Firefighters were called to the incident on Collingwood Court, Lichfield Street, Stone at 2.45pm. An elderly man had been assisted out of the first floor maisonette prior to the arrival of crews.
A saucepan of food that had been left on the hob caught fire, which firefighters wearing breathing apparatus tackled using one hose reel jet.
Station manager Simon Craythorn said: “It was lucky that the man noticed the fire as the smoke alarm had been removed from its bracket. People who have no smoke alarms or who to choose to remove them are playing russian roulette with their lives.
“In the past week we have had three elderly people die in fires – had the man not noticed this fire when he did there is the possibility that he could have been the fourth.
“We are currently running a cooking safety campaign due to the large number of fires we attend that are caused by cooking left unattended. The advice is simple –wait until you’ve finished cooking before you leave the room and then turn off any cooking appliance.”
The fire caused light smoke logging to the property. Firefighters left the incident at 4.15pm.
The service’s cooking campaign was launched in February after statistics revealed that over half of accidental house fires start in the kitchen. The campaign is supported by hard-hitting posters bearing the message ‘Look When You Cook’.
