Sister Bay/Liberty Grove Fire Chief Chris Hecht reminds you to keep combustible items away from the stovetop when cooking after a Sunday morning fire. Firefighters responded to the apartment on Stony Ridge Circle in the Village of Sister Bay at 1:40 a.m., where items on the owner’s stove had caught fire. Hecht credited a neighbor for their quick action after the owner tried to control the fire herself but failed. Hecht says they were on the scene for about 15 minutes, but he hopes the lesson people can learn from the incident lasts a lot longer than that.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, cooking causes an average of 158,400 reported home structure fires annually, causing approximately 470 deaths and 4,150 injuries.