A recent study by the University of Regina shows that the most common cause of residential fires in Regina is careless cooking.
In an effort to cut down on these preventable fires, the Regina Fire Department partnered with the university to study 884 residential cooking fires in 2014 and 2015.
“Cooking is a reality, it involves heat, and whenever you have heat and you’re cooking something there is a potential risk,” Regina Fire Chief Layne Jackson said.
A few reasons why kitchen fires start is because food is left unattended on the stove, slow reaction time to the incident and not paying attention.
“It shows how vulnerable we all are to the actions of some individuals,” Rozzet Jurdi-Hage, the lead author on the report said.
Jurdi-Hage said immigrants are 1.8 times more at risk to be involved with a cooking fire.
“Most of them don’t have fire education, so they need some information about safe practices using electric stoves and remember to double check the burner is off,” Jurdi-Hage said.
These fires most often happen on Sundays when more people are at home, the least amount of calls are on Tuesdays.
The fire department is using the data for a public prevention push.