A fire broke out Tuesday in the kitchen of an IHOP near Gwinnett Place Mall.
The blaze started about 11:30 a.m. at the restaurant in the 2100 block of Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth, according to Gwinnett County fire department spokesman Donald Strother. The restaurant is less than a mile from the mall.
Maintenance was being performed on one of the fryers, Strother said.
“A part of this process included heating the grease inside of the fryer,” he said. “The temperature of the grease reached unexpected levels and ignited.”
Employees put out the fire with an extinguisher, Strother said, but the grease was so hot that the flames reignited. The employees “immediately evacuated the building.”
When crews arrived, they saw “heavy brown smoke coming from the roof and large flames inside of the single-story commercial structure,” Strother said. Firefighters used hand lines to put out the fire.
“Despite a successful knockdown in the kitchen, the fire had already extended up into the attic and onto the roof,” Strother said.
Crews climbed onto the roof and cut portions of it open to vent the flames. Strother said the fire was extinguished in about 20 minutes.
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