The kitchen of the Sonic Drive-In on George Washington Memorial Highway in Gloucester sustained extensive damage on Sunday morning from a fire that started in a deep fat fryer. According to Gloucester Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad Chief J.D. Clements, staff members were getting ready to fire up the ovens when the deep fat fryer caught fire. They tried to put out the fire with an extinguisher, but forgot to pull the lever for the fire suppression system, said Clements. All staff members evacuated safely. A new roof had recently been installed over the original roof, said Clements, and fire went into the duct work and up into the original roof. Firefighters had to cut a hole through the new roof to extinguish the resulting fire. The fire was knocked down within 30 minutes, said Clements, so there was not a lot of structural damage to the rest of the building, but the kitchen “was pretty much destroyed.” The call came in at 9:09 a.m. and the first engine arrived at 9:14 a.m. Individual ...