A fire that engulfed a Cooper City home early Tuesday morning may have been caused by an air fryer that was left unattended, Broward Sheriff's Fire Rescue officials said.
Chopper 6 showed firefighters responding to the home in the 8000 block of Southwest 57th Manor as smoke rose into the air.
The homeowner spoke with NBC6 and said she'd come home after dropping her kids off at school and found her air fryer on fire.
“I was sweeping the front yard and then I heard the fire alarm. When I go in through the garage door, I open the door and my dog is in the cage in the kitchen and my air fryer is on fire and it was already spreading into the stove, into the cabinets," the homeowner said. "I ran to the side door and opened the side door of the kitchen, grabbed the dog and ran out. Now our house, we can’t live in it anymore. It’s completely destroyed."
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The homeowner was able to pull the dog out of the home as fire rescue crews responded.
Fire Rescue Chief Michael Kane confirmed that no injuries were reported and that “all occupants and pets escaped unharmed.”
Pictures provided to NBC 6 by the homeowner show the home's kitchen destroyed and almost unrecognizable.
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The ceiling of the old kitchen is seen collapsed to the floor.
The homeowner said she'd used her air fryer to heat up pizza and didn't use the stove, so she believes that's what started the fire.
“Be careful with air fryers. It’s horrible," she said.
She didn't want to provide her name or show her face. She told NBC6 she came home after dropping her kids off from school and found her air fryer on fire.
Officials with the Red Cross said they were assisting the family of five, which includes three children.
The official cause of the fire is still under investigation but officials said air fryers should be unplugged when not in use.
"Certainly you don’t want to leave it unattended, at least not for a long period of time. Most air fryers have a timer but some of those timers could be quite long, an hour or more," Kane said. "I would recommend checking that air fryer every couple of minutes while your food is cooking. I certainly wouldn’t leave the house while you have something in the air fryer cooking because if you do have a mishap, you may not catch it in time."
A GoFundMe was established to help the family.
