Joliet fire chief says most local fires are cooking-related

Joliet’s fire chief said unattended cooking fires “continue to be the No. 1 cause of fires” in the city.

At last week’s public safety forum, Joliet Fire Chief Jeff Carey said the fire department responded to more than 23,000 incidents last year. He said 78% of the incidents are for emergency medical services and 22% are for fires.

Not all fire calls involve a structure fire, which are fires that damage buildings, Carey said. Last year, there were 318 fires and 132 of those incidents were structure fires, he said.

“Unattended cooking fires continue to be the No. 1 cause of fires in Joliet at 36 percent of our fires,” Carey said.

Carey said that according to the federal Bomb Arson Tracking System, 28% of reported fires in the U.S. were incendiary, or fires that are intentionally ignited.

In Joliet, the number of incendiary fires is only 5%, making the city “way below the standard of incendiary fires,” Carey said.

Carey pointed to the success of the Combined Arson Task Force in the early 1990s to investigate arsons in Joliet.

“They started making arrests of these arsonists and that’s drastically reduced our number of arsons ever since that time,” Carey said.

While the number of structure fires in the U.S. has steadily declined in the past 20 years, there’s been an alarming rise in the number of fire-related deaths, Carey said.

“The increasing amount of synthetic materials in our homes these days cause the fires to burn hotter and faster than ever before. This leaves us less time to escape if a fire should occur,” Carey said.

More than 70% of fire-related deaths in the U.S. occur inside residences, he said.

Carey recommended people follow these fire safety tips:

• Have working smoke detectors.

• Implement a fire escape plan.

• Close your door when asleep in your room.

“If you ever watch any of the YouTube videos that show when a door closed in a fire, the room is almost completely clean. That will buy us time until the fire department gets there and makes a rescue,” Carey said.

Carey said the Joliet Fire Department partners with the American Red Cross each year in their Sound The Alarm campaign to issue free smoke detectors in the community.

This year, the fire department provided 622 smoke detectors in more than 244 residences, Carey said.