Life
We Accidentally Caused a Fire Scare at a Popular Hotel
Until first responders could find the cause of the problem, the entire building had to be evacuated
While working at a nearby hotel as a breakfast line cook, fresh out of Culinary School, I was on shift one Sunday morning early, never anticipating a dreadful scenario was about to unfold.
Working alone
As weekends were always our busiest time, it meant arriving around 3 a.m. to prepare for the large 6 a.m. breakfast crowd. For the most part, we worked through our shifts without incident and hoped for no surprises as our workload had already doubled.
The other person assigned that morning wouldn’t arrive for two more hours and all I could do is push through the preparations.
My first tasks included turning on the ovens to cook the bacon, several trips to the refrigerator to pick up cut-up vegetables and fruit, cartons of liquid eggs, and frozen items. Tasks I had done several times before.
Trying to beat the crowd
I was moving along at a fairly good pace. As an older employee, I felt the need to prove myself and kept a written checklist of my tasks, which I followed diligently so as not to forget anything on my schedule.
It was the responsibility of the night shift to spread the bacon out onto trays and store them in the refrigerator, ready to slide onto oven racks in the morning.
Their tasks also included cutting fruit and vegetables, cleaning the ovens and workstations, and putting the washed utensils and pots back on their racks.
At the end of my day, I would also be responsible for prepping for the next morning’s shift — that’s how we kept things moving along.
A fly in the ointment
This one Sunday in particular, I turned on the ovens as usual, warmed the oil for fries, and set up my station. Never having issues previously, there was no reason to think anything would go awry.
Time was tight, but I was on track. While preparing the custard for French toast, I detected a peculiar smell — like burning rubber or plastic.
Not today, please. We’re going to be busy, and I can’t hold up breakfast!
Before I could locate the source of the odor, I noticed smoke emanating from one of the ovens. Thinking fast, I immediately turned them both off, but it was too late — I heard the fire alarms blasting.
Once the alarms sounded, the fire department would be on its way, and there was no way to stop them. One of the managers, who had a room upstairs, started moving everyone out of the building, including guests in the upper rooms, which were pretty well packed.
The police arrived first and helped the manager evacuate guests.
Shortly after, the Fire Department arrived, and immediately two of them rushed into the kitchen area, while one stayed outside and asked me questions.
Nothing’s on fire, I promise!
As people were still being moved out of the hotel from other areas, I informed the fireman that it was only smoke from the ovens, which I had already turned off.
Begging to get back into the kitchen did not help and he would not let me return.
Just the threat of fire in a public place, even if it was only a smoky oven, was enough to evacuate everyone for their safety. I could do nothing, but I worried I may lose my job.
As a result, the parking lot was filled with people, most still in their pajamas, getting rained on, and not even permitted to stay in the lobby until the situation was deemed safe.
While we waited outside, every guest room, lobby, dining area, storage and laundry room, and, of course, the kitchen, had to be checked.
Sometime later, one of the firemen came outside and asked me to follow him back into the kitchen. Not sure about what had happened, my nerves were kicking in, and I stuttered, “What was it? What did I do?”
The culprit!
With that, he stuck his gloved hand inside the oven and pulled out a large pizza paddle with its long black plastic handle burned to a crisp and still smoldering!
It immediately registered that part of the problem was my fault for assuming the oven was empty, although someone from the night shift had carelessly left it in there.
It turned out to be my friend and co-worker George, a young, energetic black man who I completely adored. He was my mentor and helped me when I was overloaded with work, as I did him.
We very often worked a shift together, covered each other’s mistakes, and rearranged schedules for each other when needed.
I quickly told the kitchen manager, who had arrived on the scene, that it was my fault for not checking the oven before turning it on.
But there was no covering up for this one. I was sure we were both in trouble, as this would turn out to be a costly mistake for the hotel.
After their investigation was concluded, the firemen allowed the guests to come back inside. It was a relief to be able to turn the ovens back on and try to recover the lost time. The guests were awake, damp, and hungry, and the servers had arrived and were waiting to do their jobs.
Stroke of luck
George and I were lucky to only receive warnings. Maybe our reputations as hard workers and normally responsible employees saved us, because we didn’t lose our jobs that day.
Going forward, I made it a point to double-check the ovens before turning them on, just in case.
George became more diligent about cleaning up his work area. He even requested a copy of my checklist, which he had previously refused, claiming he had all the tasks committed to memory, or so he thought.
A few months later, I took a position as a baker at another establishment, and he moved on, too.
We kept in touch for a few years and reminisced about the comings and goings of working at that hotel, particularly the incident over how a piece of burning plastic created enough chaos to bring down the operations of a large, packed hotel, for over an hour one rainy Sunday morning.
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