PORT TOWNSEND — The sharp ears of a trained firefighter stopped a fire before it turned into a disaster.

Jordan Pollack, a former Port Townsend fire chief who now runs a fire training and consulting business, was walking down Water Street at about 3 p.m. Wednesday when he heard the distinctive wail of a smoke alarm.

He followed it to its source in Admiralty Apartments — a TV dinner smoldering in an unattended oven.

“Being in this job, your ears are tuned to odd noises,” Pollack said.

“We can hear these things when no one else does.”

When Pollack heard the alarm, he entered the facility, which has 38 partially-subsidized apartments and predominantly houses low-income senior citizens.

The sound grew louder.

He contacted the manager who said she did not hear it, but who allowed Pollack to take a look for himself.

None of the other tenants heard the alarm, Pollack said.

He followed the sound up to the second-floor apartment and felt heat from the door.

The manager let him into the apartment.

He opened the door slowly because “you don’t want to run in to where a fire is because a burst of oxygen can cause it to spread,” he said.

The room had a layer of smoke on the ceiling and the oven was on with a burned TV dinner wrapped in plastic, inside.

Pollack turned off the oven and opened the windows to clear the smoke.

There were no flames, and he did not contact East Jefferson Fire-Rescue.

“I didn’t call because there was no danger and I am a firefighter,” he said.

“But if a smoke alarm goes off and you don’t know why, you should call 9-1-1 right away.”

Pollack contacted the tenant on Thursday.

She told him she had turned the oven knob the wrong way before leaving the apartment.

There was no damage to the apartment, he said.

Pollack, 53, served as fire chief of the Port Townsend department in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, before the city contracted for fire services with East Jefferson Fire-Rescue.

He is the fire chief of the Breitenbush Fire Department in Oregon. He lives in Port Townsend and commutes, he said.

In addition to his training and consulting business,he also coordinates programs in Mexico for firefighters crossing border.

Pollack said that smoke alarms “are the first line of defense” against fires and should be maintained with periodic battery replacements.

________

Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.