This Dunkin’ was hot and ready.
A viral TikTok with 786,000 views showed an incident where a customer put out a fire at a New York Dunkin’ Donuts location — and how the staff responded is sparking a debate online.
In the video, posted by a TikTok user named Cristina Conklin (@nurse_xtina129), the employees are seemingly unconcerned about the small toaster fire.
“Apparently, there’s a very not serious fire in Dunkin’ right now,” Conklin said in the video. “Nobody seems to care.”
“What the actual F?” she continued. “One of you guys needs to do something, that’s crazy.”
The flames can be seen wafting for several seconds before one person tries to swat them with a broom, eliciting an exasperated “why?” from a coworker.
When that didn’t work, she put the broom down, shrugged and continued working.
“Do you have a fire extinguisher? Do you know where it is?” Conklin called out to the employees. “Do you guys have a manager you can call?”
Another staffer found the fire extinguisher, and Conklin stepped in and showed them how to use it.
She put out the fire with the extinguisher and left a cloud of white in that entire section of the store.
Conklin informed the staff that they’d now have to call the fire department and told her viewers that she “saved” the Dunkin’.
“I saw a fire with 3 teens not knowing what to do at Dunkin’ when I went to get my coffee, and I helped them put it out with a fire extinguisher!” Conklin told Storyful, per ABC 7.
“I lost a nail, but I’m good,” Conklin said at the end of the video. “Everybody is safe.”
However, the video set off a debate about whether or not the customer was correct to use the fire extinguisher.
Many thought she overreacted.
“Fire extinguisher is a bit excessive for such a small flame bc that ruins the entire oven,” one person wrote.
“The bread would’ve just stopped burning at some point; those toasters catch croissants on fire all the time, it’s not a big deal, especially not big enough to deploy a fire extinguisher,” another noted.
Some who claimed to be former Dunkin’ employees said that these small toaster fires happen “all the time” and they go out on their own.
People also pointed out that due to the chemicals in the extinguisher, the food can no longer be served and they likely had to close the store for a bit.
“This shit happens all the time at my store we take a knife and push the burning bread through to make it stop it’s never serious enough to use a fire extinguisher tbh now all that food has to be thrown out including the toaster being deep clean!” someone wrote.
“Wow…. As a firefighter. She just wrecked that machine lol. Grab some tongs. Remove the burning food. Done…. No more fuel. No more fire,” another commented.
While some agreed that the fire extinguisher might have been overkill, they said it was “crazy” that people were coming for Conklin, instead blaming Gen Z for not knowing how to act and seemingly not caring.
“Crazy, everyone is coming for you. When those [workers] should be trained to know what to do. I think that’s the bigger problem,” someone pointed out.
“They’re all like 16. Even the managers are kids there. Common sense from a chef is put it out and get back to work. Dont call fd, and you used the wrong one, lady,” one wrote.
“Ok, to everyone saying they should not have used the fire extinguisher, that is fine…but, clearly, these kids did not know what to do in this scenario and that could have gotten a lot worse,” a user said.
“WAVING A BROOM?? Gen Z is effed,” someone said.
“I feel like the fire extinguisher was overkill, but the fact that the employees didn’t seem to take it at all seriously is bananas,” one wrote on X.
“In all fairness, every employee I see is a kid. There’s a learning curve on different types of fires. Shame on management for not training them right. At least they were trying,” someone else wrote.
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