The Gravenhurst Fire Department’s fire chief credits one homeowner for her quick-thinking but cautions that what she did might not always be the right thing to do.
Jared Cayley says all three stations responded to a call of a potential structure fire at a mobile home park in Kilworthy off of Highway 11 just before 2 PM Thursday. He explains that it turned out to not be as serious as they first thought. After clearing away snow and getting into the home’s crawl space, Cayley says crews found what they believed to be the cause of the fire: an overheated de-icing cable.
“No major damage,” Cayley says. “Just a little hard work by the team to get under the crawlspace and then we started releasing trucks. Just as our last vehicle was heading down the road to head out the rear entrance of the mobile home park, a resident was trying to flag them down. She had a kitchen fire.”
The officer in charge of that truck called dispatch to get everyone back to the scene.
Cayley says the homeowner was quick to get out her fire extinguisher and put the small fire out. He adds she was “quite shocked” that she took initiative to put the fire out.
No injuries were reported at both incidents and only “minor damage” was done to the homes.
If the fire is small enough that you can take care of it with your extinguisher, then use it but in most cases, you should be using it to get out,” Cayley cautioned.
He adds an extinguisher isn’t something you can buy, leave in a cupboard or hang somewhere in your home and forget about it until you need it. He says it’s something you need to inspect often to make sure it’s in working condition.
“I want to commend this person’s actions, but I need to remind people that you need to apply common sense,” he says. “I’m not saying people shouldn’t use fire extinguishers. I’m just saying they should understand what their fire extinguisher is capable of.”
Not related to these two fires, Cayley says they have had multiple instances of people tweeting the fire department or the Town of Gravenhurst to report a fire. “Calling 911 and getting help the appropriate way got help there quick,” he says about the two fires they dealt with yesterday. “Tweeting us, or sending something to the Town of Gravenhurst social media feed, is not calling 911.”