ROCHESTER - Three people are homeless and two cats are dead after a kitchen fire started by hot cooking oil severely damaged a two-family home at 8 Pine St. on Wednesday morning.

Rochester Fire Marshal Dominick Bellio said the blaze started around 7:20 a.m. when Dan Thomas, 26, poured cooking oil into a frying pan to make some mozzarella sticks after returning home from his third-shift job. After turning on the electric stove to heat up the oil, Thomas went to the bathroom, Bellio said. When Thomas returned to the kitchen, the cooking oil was boiling over and on fire, with flames to the ceiling, he told fire officials.

“So he did the right thing. The fire was too big for him to handle, so he grabbed his coat, grabbed his cell phone and got out of the house,” Bellio said.

His girlfriend and another roommate who shared the first-floor apartment with Thomas were at work at the time of the fire. A second-floor apartment was unoccupied, with new tenants scheduled to move in next week who will now be unable to, Bellio said.

One cat did escape the fire, but two others perished.

A separate multi-unit apartment attached to the Pine Street home by a shed was evacuated as a safety precaution, and all residents were permitted to return home after the scene was cleared around 9:30 a.m.

Bellio said proper cooking devices for deep frying should always be used to prevent such fires. He said devices like a Fry Daddy maintain the oil at a certain temperature so it does not overheat.

He said another lesson learned is that cooking should never be left unattended.

Thomas did not require services from the American Red Cross and told fire officials he would be staying with family in the area.