San Luis Rey Restaurant Fire Causes $50K in Damage

Wood building materials ignited in a wall behind ovens in a popular restaurant in the San Luis Rey area, sparking a fire that caused about $50,000 in damage.

Employees at Fratelli’s Italian Kitchen and Catering on Mission Avenue near Douglas Drive called 911 after spotting smoke billowing from a ceiling vent in the eatery’s bar area around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday, Battalion Chief Pete Lawrence of the Oceanside Fire Department said. The restaurant had closed for the night shortly beforehand.

Arriving fire crews found smoke from the restaurant’s ceiling beginning to bank down toward the floor. Restaurant employees were evacuated as firefighters used thermal imaging devices to search for the source of the smoke.

“Crews attempting to locate the fire inside the restaurant were hampered by the sheer volume of heat sources associated with the restaurant,” Lawrence said. “Each oven and cooking surface masked any ability to see or feel for heat in the walls behind it.”

Lawrence said firefighters cut into the kitchen wall and at the roof line to find the blaze, which was burning inside the wall behind the tiled cooking area. Around 30 firefighters from Oceanside and Vista had it under control by about 9:20 p.m.

After the fire was extinguished, crews made sure it did not spread and pushed residual water from the floors to the outside. A fire investigator determined the blaze was caused by the long term heating of wood building materials in the wall behind the ovens, according to the battalion chief.

Lawrence said a county Health Department inspector was working with the restaurant’s operators on a plan to reopen, and the fire investigator and the city’s Building Department would be meeting with them later this week to ensure that adequate heat shielding is placed behind the oven when the kitchen area is rebuilt.

—City News Service