And the fire that killed August was the second one last week to be caused by an unattended stove. Last Thursday, a house was destroyed after a minor began cooking on his stove and then went to wash his clothes. Today, Station Supervisor Kenneth Mortis emphasized the importance of keeping an eye on any stove that is lit:
Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor, NFS
"We cannot overemphasize the importance of practicing fire safety. I'm in the middle of cooking and I am called or caught up in other activities, turn off the stove. Where does fire safety begin? It begins with us. I can't practice fire safety for you and vise versa you can't for me, I must practice fire safety for me. I don't see anything more important to engage in an outside conversation while having the stove on versus carry out the conversation and turn off the stove. Or who knows, have the conversation in my kitchen, if I want to talk, I'll talk to you in my kitchen. It's a practice that has presented itself over the years. For a time our fire safety campaign had worked whereby that particular contributing cause to a fire had downsized 
tremendously. Unfortunately in a spate of two days we have the exact same cause contributing to these types of fires. Play it safe, stick to cooking, let the cooking play its course, and then you can engage in open conversation. If we feel we want to take a nap, turn off the stove, go take that nap, do whatever we want to do, however we can't be comfortable in doing both, we can't want to be conversing with Ms Mary across the street while still cooking, it's a recipe for disaster."
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