San Jose firefighters carry out insulation and glass from a grease fire that started in the kitchen of a home off Doherty Road in Morgan Hill early Wednesday afternoon.
Photo by: Austin Gavin
Catfish was the culprit of a five-engine kitchen fire in north Morgan Hill Wednesday afternoon.
CalFire, Santa Clara County, South County and San Jose fire departments responded to the blaze at 55 Kalana Ave., off Dougherty Avenue, caused by frying catfish left unattended.
The fire was reported at 1:34 p.m. and the first engine responded at 1:40 p.m, according to CalFire South County Battalion Chief Derek Witmer. The fire was out in about five minutes, said Capt. Jason Falarski of the Santa Clara County Fire Department. His engine was the first to respond.
"When we arrived, there was light smoke coming out of the front window, which we knocked out to release the heat," he said.
First, they ventilated the room, then they put the fire out and removed burned items and checked for hidden fires, Witmer said.
Homeowner Gerald Guess said he was frying catfish for lunch when Pamela Wright, his mother Alberta Guess's caretaker, arrived. Then her physical therapist arrived, and had a question for him so he left the kitchen.
"When I got back I saw the fire in the pan, and it was reaching up and hitting the cabinets," he said. "It was a grease fire, so I knew I couldn't throw water on it and I didn't have any flour around." Instead, he got out. He used his garden hose to spray the wood cabinets to keep the fire from spreading to other areas of the home.
"(The firefighters) said I prevented a lot of damage that way," Guess said.
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst, Falarski said this fire was a four. If it hadn't been for the early call to 911, it could have been a 10, he said.
"Had the call been made any later, and the heat would have melted the sheet rock leading to the attic, and the house would have been lost," Falarski said.
Pamela Wright, caregiver to wheelchair-bound Alberta Guess, made the call.
"I was helping Alberta in the bathroom, and I smelled the smoke and when I opened the door, I saw the shadow of smoke," she said, as she and Alberta Guess sat in a corner of the front yard under the shade of a tree. "I yelled, 'Get out of the house, there's a fire!' and then I called."
Falarski said Gerald Guess got his mother out of the house before firefighters responded, so there were "no life-safety worries."
Gerald Guess said the incident ruined his day. He and his wife have lived in the home since 1990 with his wife and three children, all of whom graduated from Live Oak High School, he said.
But, the fire wasn't a total loss, he said.
"My wife's been wanting to remodel the kitchen anyway," he joked.
Natalie Everett covers education and city issues for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.
Natalie Everett Natalie Everett is the education and city reporter for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.
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Grease fire scorches kitchen
