There’s a reason why greed is considered a “deadly” sin.

The incident happened around 9:30 p.m. on November 27, at a yakiniku barbecue restaurant in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. According to prefectural  police, the fire started when the flames leaping up from the large amount of meat grilling at a customer’s table spread to the oil-covered air vent above.

If you’re unfamiliar with how yakiniku-type restaurants work, often there is a grill at the center of each table, and customers can order meats and other sides of their choosing and grill it up themselves. This particular restaurant had an all-you-can-eat option as well, which is what the customers in question had ordered, before things took a turn for the worse. “We were grilling a large amount of meat, when the flames went up and the air duct caught on fire. We tried grilling a bunch at once so we could finish it all within the all-you-can-eat time limit,” one of the diners explained.

Fat drippings from even a small amount of meat can cause a fair amount of flames, as you can see in the video below, so you can imagine that a large pile would elicit a rather sizable fire. Couple that with a grease-covered air duct just above the grill, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsKY9Gfs5DM

The fire raged for four hours before it was fully extinguished, but not before it burnt through the whole two-story establishment, and part of the real estate office in the connecting building. While there were several customers and employees in the restaurant when the fire started, thankfully no one was injured.

31-year-old Kazuaki Sawada, a diner at the restaurant who witnessed the fire, told reporters: “There were a number of businessmen-looking customers sitting at the table, and the flames went straight up and it caught fire. We just couldn’t put it out, and it got bigger and bigger.”

While they didn’t purposely set the restaurant on fire in a hangry rage, they tried to take advantage of an all-you-can-eat deal and in the end sent an establishment up in smoke. Perhaps we could learn from their example and not be greedy with our food.

Source: Sankei West via Hachima Kikou
Featured image: YouTube/ TVnaokichi