Lesson well-learned as home owner puts out cooking fire

Lessons learnt from demonstrations like this, showing the right and wrong ways to put out a pot fire, helped save a Rawene house on Wednesday. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Lessons learnt from a Fire Service demonstration saved a Rawene house when a cooking pot caught fire.

The fire started in a Manning St kitchen about 2.20pm on Wednesday but when the Rawene Fire Brigade arrived the blaze was already out and the home owner greeted firefighters with a cheery: "I learnt from you guys".

What she meant was she had watched the Fire Service's demonstration showing people the right and wrong ways to put out a pot fire on the stove.

The demonstration kitchen is mounted on a trailer which travels around Northland events, including Rawene's annual brumby races.

Rawene station officer Nopera Pikari was delighted the demonstration had paid off. The woman had put out the fire on her own with no damage to her kitchen except for a slightly charred pot.

"It was great that she'd seen it and learnt from it. The message is obviously getting through to people," Mr Pikari said.

In the demonstration a heavily protected firefighter puts out a pot of burning cooking oil using a wet tea towel, a breadboard and a lid. The firefighter then shows how not to put out an oil fire by throwing water on the blaze, resulting in a massive fireball that would ignite the walls and ceiling.