Woman, firefighter suffer minor injuries in kitchen blaze

By Nikki Villoria

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 | 11:24 p.m.

A woman was treated for smoke inhalation and a firefighter suffered a minor injury in a kitchen fire Wednesday afternoon that caused $75,000 damage, Las Vegas fire officials said.

According to a Las Vegas Fire and Rescue report, firefighters responded to the Rock Springs Vista III townhouse complex at 7916 Esterbrook Way at 5:24 p.m.

The fire began in the kitchen of a unit where a woman put a pan of cooking oil on the stove top to heat and got sidetracked by a phone call, the fire report said.

After the smoke alarms went off, she found flames reaching up to the fan above the stove and into the duct work, fire officials said.

She got out of the building, warned neighbors and called 911. She was treated on site by paramedics for minor smoke inhalation. A firefighter was taken to the hospital to be examined for a minor injury, officials said.

The duct work for the exhaust fan ran above the ceiling, in the wall between two downstairs condos and the length of the building to a vent out of an exterior rear wall, officials said.

Smoke and flames ran through the ducts and set the wood on fire in the void space between the upstairs and downstairs units, causing damage to three additional units, officials said.

It took firefighters about an hour to extinguish the blaze.

According to the report, the two downstairs units both sustained heavy fire and smoke damage, estimated at $30,000 for each unit. An upstairs unit sustained about $5,000 damage and another unit incurred $10,000 damage.

Nine people were displaced.