Helped extinguish the fire

Kitchen appliance saved home from fire

Lots of smoke, but little damage thanks to a kitchen appliance(Bild: K. Stoxreiter/J. Schwaighofer)

A fire protection system with water sprinklers is anything but common in domestic single-family homes. However, a house in Tiefgraben was saved from a dustbin fire in exactly this way, so that the fire department alerted did not have much more to do than ventilate and check the smoke-filled house.

At 10.27 am, the fire departments from Hof bei Mondsee, Guggenberg, Mondsee and Tiefgraben were alerted to a residential building in Tiefgraben. The command: "Building fire - probably kitchen fire on the 1st floor - unclear whether there are people in the house!" 

First looking for people
"Because the situation was unclear as to whether there were people in the house, a search for people was carried out on the heavily smoky second floor by the breathing apparatus team from the Mondsee fire department," says incident commander Georg Brucker from the Hof fire department, describing the initial measures taken at the scene. "After no people were found, the firefighting started."

A dustbin had caught fire in the kitchen(Bild: K. Stoxreiter/J. Schwaighofer)

Quicker than expected
But this turned out to be easier than expected: A bin had caught fire in the kitchen on the second floor, which had also set fire to other parts of the kitchen furnishings. However, the heat had melted a dishwasher supply line above it.

60 firefighters on site
Water was flowing out of it, which automatically contained the fire. The firefighters only had to carry out extinguishing work. The house was ventilated and the kitchen checked for further embers before the 60 or so firefighters, police and ambulance crews left after a good hour and a half.