Home Chefs In Ontario Are Setting A Ton Of Accidental Fires

It looks like some Ontarians haven't mastered their cooking skills just yet. According to some of the province's fire chiefs, as people continue to stay home, the number of Ontario cooking fires have been on the rise. Now, residents are being warned to never leave cooking appliances unattended. 

The Greater Sudbury Fire Services revealed on June 17 that crews have been responding to a spike of cooking, smoking, and outdoor blazes over the last few months.

“Over the past three months, since people have been spending more time at home, Fire crews have responded to an elevated number of calls related to cooking, careless smoking, and residential home fires when compared to the same time period in previous years,” Jesse Oshell, Deputy Fire Chief told Narcity in an email.

“We have also experienced an early start to the outdoor burning season, and Fire Services has responded to approximately double the normal amount of outdoor fire calls for this time period, including two separate multi-day fires,” he added.

Oshell also told CBC that staffing for the fire department had remained unchanged during the pandemic.

However, he added that crew members have been implementing new safety measures, including sanitizing their equipment, and temperature checks.

Now, the department is warning all residents to take some extra steps to ensure that their cooking doesn't turn into flames. 

"Avoid unsafe cooking practices and never leave cooking appliances unattended," Oshell warned. 

However, it isn't just Sudbury that is dealing with this issue. 

In a tweet back in April, Toronto's fire chief Matthew Pegg warned that there had been a 17% increase in careless fires due to a spree of unattended cooking and smoking incidents.  

Narcity later reached out to Toronto Fire services for further details, who noted that the department had seen an overall increase of 8% in fires this year.

However, they could not give us specific details at this time.