After a fire breaks out in a Columbus restaurant kitchen, a worker is transported to the hospital

Columbus, Indiana – After a kitchen fire broke out, a restaurant employee from Columbus was rushed to a nearby hospital with severe burn injuries.

Firefighters from the Columbus Fire Department were called to the El Nopal Restaurant in the 3100 block of North National Road at 12:58 on Saturday after receiving a complaint of a kitchen fire. When the Columbus Police Department’s officers got on the scene first, they saw flames pouring from vents on the building’s roof.

The eatery was being evacuated and the flames had been put out by police when firefighters arrived on the site. Employees of El Nopal informed the firefighters that they thought the fire was out after they had been let inside the premises. When firefighters entered the kitchen, they discovered materials that were still burning close to the area where food was being prepared, but the fire attack crew had already put them out.

A male employee who was in the kitchen at the time of the fire suffered severe burns to his arm. Medical services attended to the employee’s wound and took him or her to a nearby hospital. Another worker was examined for a small burn but chose not to go to the hospital.

The incident, according to officials with the Columbus incident Department, started when water was added to a cooking pot that was holding hot cooking oil. Due to the massive explosion of flames caused by this, the worker was hurt, and combustible materials in the kitchen were set on fire. An employee claimed to have used a number of portable fire extinguishers to douse the flames before firemen arrived, according to officials.

Although a fire suppression system was allegedly installed in the kitchen, there is no proof that it was used to put out the fire. The cause of the fire was determined by officials to be unintentional.

El Nopal will be closed because of the Fire for an unkown period of time until maintenance and additional inspections are finished. The fire’s damage is estimated to have cost around $25,000.