I’m a cook in a pretty ritzy retirement community. Our gluten free frier broke down and we have to resort to a pot of oil on the stove. One of our cooks wasn’t paying attention after lighting the pot to make some “GF” fries and the pot caught on fire.
We tried to cover the fire to smother the flame but it kept on reigniting like a trick candle. My boss put it on a (plastic) cart, pushed it into the service elevator right outside to take care of it. Eventually the fire alarm went off, which killed the hood vents. We were still serving dinner at this point and had many burgers and steaks on the grill. So smoke was filling the room pretty quickly at this point. The alarm was going off and literally nobody was evacuating or reacting at all. Even when the fire department showed up and all the servers were hacking and coughing and delivering plates to tables. They were all very chill about the whole thing. It felt like I was going crazy.
by DoorstepCult
16 Comments
We didn’t start the fire
Duck in the water….. that’s how it was explained to me.
One the surface, it looks calm, cool and collected. Just bobbing along the water. But below the water it’s a fury of legs, going every which way and constantly adjusting to keep the “ship” on course.
You never let them see the chaos. Even if you had to evacuate. You don’t run out screaming FIRE. You calmy walk the floor and let everyone know there’s an issue and we need to go outside for a minute….
I once caught an omellete station on fire with a stray rag. A few guests started getting nervous and flustered that were waiting in line. I picked it up, put it out with another rag, threw it behind the table and continued making omelets. Only 5-6 people out of the dozens there even knew there was an issue.
People lose their shit, panic and then the injuries happen.
minor accident
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Seriously, no one wants to acknowledge the annoying fire alarm. Oh, it’s just a drill.
I worked at a very high-end retirement home for three years, we had fire drills once a month and I will never forget the alarm. Shit was so loud you could feel in in your jaws.
Putting flaming oil on a plastic cart and in an elevator is the wildest sentence I’ve heard. Honestly in hindsight you should have turned the burner off and kept that shit covered until someone got a fire extinguisher. Wild shit
[Put your hands up! ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLBC7weTR4Y)
edit:
[original, 16 years ago now? holy shit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC03hmS1Brk)
Do you now understand what you should have done?
I’m in a nursing home kitchen and we have fire safety training twice a year and monthly fire drills. Two people would have been shutting down the kitchen and everyone else would have been getting residents out of potential harms way.
This looks like it was taken on the moon
I’m confused. Someone covered the pot.
Then it was uncovered.
Then covered again.
Then uncovered.
The solution is to cover the pot. I’m at a loss as to what the urgency was to keep uncovering it. It takes time for the fire to consume all of the oxygen. That’s what makes it go out.
Fire isn’t shy
Your boss is not the brightest tool in the shed. Even if it’s not on fire, putting a hot piece of metal on a plastic cart is not a good idea.
This is why I grimace every time someone asks here what to do about a broken fryer and people here say to just put a pot of oil on a burner
You shouldn’t do that, you know.
We have a huge group of mostly teenagers at our hotel for an event right now & literally 15 minutes after I clocked in today, one of them decided to pull a fire alarm as a joke. The alarm went off & everyone in our kitchen stood around awkwardly looking at each other for a solid 90 seconds before we decided to casually stroll to the nearest exit. While I was standing outside in the freezing cold with no jacket, all I could think of is how horrible our response to the fire alarm was. I won’t be surprised if we end up having to do a drill or mandatory training soon.
We have that cart at the home I work in. For a second I was like “god damnit what did the closers do”