Kitchen fire damages Hurricane Restaurant in Kennebunkport’s Dock Square

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — A pot left boiling overnight on a gas-array stove is thought to have sparked a fire that ripped as a result of aspect of the kitchen at Hurricane Cafe in Dock Square on May well 26.

“It just boiled the drinking water out and heated the pot,” stated Kennebunkport Fireplace Main John Everett, moments following firefighters cleared the scene about 9:45 a.m.

Everett motioned to the pot, which sat, partially melted, amid other particles on the pavement of the parking lot at the rear of the cafe. Big, charred bones, which had been in the method of getting boiled for inventory, could be seen within the pot.

“Aluminum will melt at, I imagine, 1,200 degrees,” Everett extra.

Everett was quite a great deal on target: according to Onlinemetals.com, aluminum commences to soften at 1,220 degrees Fahrenheit.

Everett explained there were being two people within the restaurant who called the Hearth Division the moment they found out a hearth experienced started off. A person firefighter – Everett, himself – was previously on the way, as he saw smoke billowing from the restaurant as he turned on to Western Avenue from Cooper’s Corner on his way to perform at a tiny just after 8 a.m. on Thursday morning.

“Fortunately, no a person was harm,” Everett reported.

The fire was fairly contained, with flames and smoke increasing from the stove, slipping into the wall place driving it, increasing into the attic, and escaping from a vent previously mentioned, according to Everett.

“Fortunately, considering that it experienced a path, it did not super-heat everything on its way out,” Everett claimed. “The fireplace very much stayed in the wall. There was not pretty considerably fireplace injury up in the attic.”

The fireplace, though temporary and contained, happened at a crucial time in the local cafe enterprise, as Memorial Working day weekend, typically the get started of summer time and the vacationer season right here in coastal Maine, approaches.

Everett claimed the exact time the fireplace began is not regarded. He mentioned the previous staff left the cafe on Wednesday evening someday in between 10 and 10:30 p.m. He reported, having said that, that if the flames experienced began even earlier than they apparently did – say, at 4 a.m. or so – then the entire roof could have caught hearth.

Tale carries on

The restaurant’s eating home and workplaces were not harmed in the incident, according to Everett. The building will want a “good cleaning,” even so, he included.

In battling the flames, firefighters experienced to “pull out” a portion of the ceiling in the kitchen and some of the wall behind the stove, Everett said. In fact, a gap could be witnessed in the exterior on a person facet of the restaurant.

The Kennebunk Fire Division assisted with an motor at the scene, Everett reported.

Deputy Code Enforcement Officer Andrew Welch worked with Taylor Benetti, the operator of the cafe, to get the premises again up to code so it could reopen. The restaurant reopened for company on Saturday, May perhaps 28, in accordance to it Facebook web page.

Benetti could not be reached for comment.

Hurricane Cafe is just 1 of several buildings that are in close proximity to each individual other in historic Dock Sq.. Referring to that proximity, Everett spoke with reduction when describing how the Hurricane hearth experienced been brief and contained.

“If we can keep it in the making of origin, in this spot, we’re carrying out superior,” he claimed.

Everett claimed there was some “good luck” concerned this time all around, presented personnel had arrived in time to catch the fire and Everett himself experienced noticed the smoke from a small length.

“That it was however in the levels that it was in was good for us,” he stated.

This posting originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Hurricane Cafe in Kennebunkport ME ruined by kitchen hearth