Firefighters were sent to two cooking-related fires in South Otago at the weekend, one involving a pot accidentally left on a stovetop element.
A smoke alarm and fire warden at an accommodation facility in Clark St, Owaka, combined to deal with the alert at 4.30am on Saturday.
An occupant had left the pot on the stove and gone to bed, Fire and Emergency New Zealand senior communicator Mau Barbara said.
"The alarm has gone off, the system has worked and got people out," he said.
No damage resulted and the matter was dealt with before firefighters arrived.
However, the incident was a reminder of the need not to leave cooking unattended and to "switch off before you walk off".
Kitchen fires were responsible for more than a quarter of all house fires, and people who were feeling tired were better advised to eat something that did not require cooking, he said.
Firefighters from Kaitangata and Balclutha quickly extinguished a cooking-related house fire in Christchurch St, Kaitangata, on Saturday evening.
After being alerted at 5.22pm, firefighters using breathing apparatus attacked the fire, which had begun in the kitchen and entered the ceiling and roof.
Damage was confined to the kitchen and roof area. Kaitangata deputy fire chief Dwayne Thompson said it had been a "good save".
"We got to the scene quickly and got into action pretty quickly and prevented it from becoming a more serious fire," he said.
Cooking had been undertaken in the kitchen before the fire broke out, but the exact cause was yet to be determined.
