San Francisco firefighters help cook family's turkey following oven fire

A family in San Francisco had an unusual ally in getting their turkey cooked on Thanksgiving — the fire department.

The fire crew at Engine 28 got a call midday Thursday for an incident just a block away in the North Beach neighborhood.

“Everybody in San Francisco is your neighbor, but being a block up the street this really is one of our neighbors,” explained Osayande Aikhionbare, a firefighter on the engine that responded to that call.

“So we pulled up on scene, the family was outside and they said they had a fire in their oven,” Aikhionbare said.

The family of four included a mother, a father, and two children.

The fire was out at that point but still smoking. Fire crews wiped down the oven, but then, it reignited.

Crews were able to put out the fire again and save the turkey which the family had just started cooking. However, Aikhionbare said grease from the turkey had leaked down near the oven’s heating element, which fire crews wouldn’t be able to clean without taking the oven apart.

At that moment, Aikhionbare said he and his colleague came to the same conclusion.

“Let’s just take it back to the firehouse and cook it for them as we had another side of our oven that is available,” he said.

It just so happens that the Engine 28 firehouse is one of the stations with two ovens, and the crew had a spare oven available to help this family.

The family accepted the firefighter’s help with their Thanksgiving meal and the crew brought the turkey back to their firehouse oven to cook.

“Two and a half hours later, the turkey was brown and crisp and delicious looking,” recounted Aikhionbare. “We were very happy and honored to be able to take it back up to them and to make sure that they were able to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.”

“When we have a fire, no matter how big or small it is, it’s devastating, and anything we can do to alleviate that stress and put a smile on somebody’s face is what we do,” noted Captain Jonathan Baxter with the San Francisco Fire Department.

He noted that this fire was actually one of many oven fires SFFD helped put out during the holiday.

Firefighters say they don’t typically cook food for others in their firehouse ovens, but on this occasion, they were happy to do it to help out their neighbors.

“We’re firefighters, we’re known for saving people from car accidents, burning buildings et cetera, and that’s not always the call, sometimes the call and the way you can make the biggest impact in someone’s life is by offering to take their turkey back and cook it,” Aikhionbare said.