A kitchen fire at a home on Church St. in Statesboro caused five children and two adults to quickly escape, but ultimately caused minor damage and no one was injured.
Engines with the Statesboro Fire Department were dispatched about 11:30 a.m. Friday to the home between North College and Van Buren Streets with reports of a fire.
SFD Battalion Chief Merritt Kearns said crews were on the scene quickly.
“It was a confirmed structure fire that had a kitchen fire,” Kearns said. “The station is just a few blocks, so we were on scene relatively quickly. We had moderate smoke showing and reports that everybody was out.
“We did a primary search anyway just to make sure that there's no people. We had our attack lines stretched pretty quick and we got a pretty good knock down. We got blackout pretty quickly on the fire.”
Antoine Grant, who lives at the house, said he stepped out for a moment and when he came back, he saw the smoke. He said his daughter, who was one of five children had already called 911 and he called again.
“I made sure all the kids were out,” he said. “It must have happened so quick. It was some grease on the stove.”
It is Winter Break this week for Bulloch County Schools, so all the children were home.
And while the incident could have been worse, the house was equipped with simple devices that prevented a possible tragedy.
“Fortunately, this house had working smoke alarms and the residents were alerted by the smoke alarms and that's what got them out,” Kearns said. “So, I just want to make it perfectly clear how important it is for everybody in Statesboro to have working smoke alarms. They can call the fire department at (912) 764-3473 if they don't have them and we’ll come in and provide smoke alarms free of charge. They really can do a good job alerting the occupants when we do have a fire like this.”
Kearns said reports were the fire initially came from the kitchen and he said that's what his initial observations show, as well.
“We'll do a more thorough investigation in a little bit here and have some further answers,” he said. “But everybody's safe. No injuries. No smoke inhalation. So, the residents were fortunate in this situation.”
Church St. was blocked off for about one hour while the fire trucks were on the scene.