HFD

At eight minutes after midnight on Saturday, October 29, city of Hays emergency dispatchers were alerted to an automatic fire alarm at the Centennial Plaza shopping center, 2550 Vine Street. This building is the home of fifteen businesses in our community. The city of Hays Fire Department, assisted by the city of Hays Police Department, was immediately dispatched.

The five on-duty firefighters staffing two fire trucks initially responded to investigate the automatic fire alarm. On arrival firefighters found smoke in the building and, using breathing apparatus, advanced one hose line to search for the fire. All available off-duty firefighters and Ellis County EMS were called to assist.

Firefighters quickly located a fire in the kitchen of Jalisco Mexican Restaurant. The fire had been controlled by the kitchen automatic fire extinguishing system. Firefighters searched for hidden fire spread and confirmed the fire to be out. Firefighters then worked to remove smoke from the building.

The most probable cause of the fire was food left cooking after the business closed for the night. The activation of the automatic fire extinguishing system transmitted the automatic fire alarm. As designed, the kitchen automatic fire extinguishing system prevented the fire from becoming large enough to activate fire sprinklers in the kitchen. There was some damage to kitchen equipment and some smoke damage in the building in the area of the restaurant.

During this fire emergency, firefighters also responded to two other emergency calls for service. A total of thirteen firefighters staffing four fire trucks were at work for this fire. The last fire crews left the scene at 2:19 AM.