DOTHAN, Ala. – After a year’s worth of work, the Dothan Fire Department and their partnership with the Dothan Housing Authority is aggressively taking on the “Stove Top Fire Stops” effort.
They are installing canisters to all units under the Dothan Housing Authority to enhance residential fire safety.
On Monday, April 26, the Dothan Fire Department spent the day adding free fire protection inside over 300 units under the Dothan Housing Authority.
“Over the years past, the national stats have showed that the majority of house fires begin in the kitchen,” Battalion Chief David Hasty said.
Chief Hasty said the reason why home fires start in the kitchen is because of unattended cooking. He said people become distracted and forget what they started.
“And then you come back to the kitchen to find smoke and flames visible in the kitchen,” Chief Hasty said.
This is where the Stove Top Fire Stops come into play.
“When the flame reaches the bottom of the canister here, there’s a fuse on the bottom and when that fuse lights it will burn up into that canister,” Chief Hasty said. “The canister will deploy an extinguishing agent, that agent will deploy and will smother out the fire that is on top of the stove.”
This prevents the fire from spreading throughout the apartment and possibly neighboring apartments.
“Just a couple of years ago we had some apartments that had kitchen fires,” Chief Hasty said. “They didn’t have these right here in their units and the actual fire extended. There ended up being six families displaced for multiple months at the time.”
The Stove Top Fire Stops are good to use for up six years.
“There is a magnet sitting here on top and you have a metal hood over the stove and you simply raise it up and connect the magnet to the metal and it’s there,” Chief Hasty said. “Now, what you do want to do is you want to pay particular attention to placement, you want to set it in the middle of the front and rear eyes.”
This effort is possible due to the fire department and housing authority receiving a Community Development Block Grant. The organizations are striving to make units safer.
“We just want to add a layer of fire protection,” Chief Hasty said.
