Safety and Fire Prevention Tips

Cooking Can Be Dangerous

The leading cause of home fires in the United States is cooking fires. It is also the leading cause of home fire injuries.

Did you know that in 2006, there were over 125,000 home structure fires attributed to cooking? These resulted in over 350 civilian deaths, 5,000 civilian injuries and over 10 million dollars in property damage.

Prevention Tips

Here are a few ways to make your kitchen as fire safe as possible and as a result, hopefully, prevent unnecessary loss or injury.

• Never leave a stove unattended. Unattended cooking is the number 1 cause of kitchen fires. Keep an eye on your stove and stay in the kitchen.
• Wear short or tight fitting clothing while cooking. Loose fitting sleeves can come in contact with hot objects and catch fire.
• Keep curtains, towels, pot holders and other combustible materials away from the stove. These will ignite if they come in contact with a hot element or gas burner
• Prevent grease or food from building up around cooking eyes or in the oven. Keep cooking surfaces clean
• Turn pan handles inward to prevent accidental spills which may ignite or cause serious injury. This may also prevent a child from receiving a very serious burn injury caused by accidentally grabbing the handle of a cooking utensil
• If a fire does happen,
• Slide a lid over the flames so as to smother the fire, turn off the cooking element and exit the house. Leave the lid in place until the pan has cooled down. never try to carry the pan outside. More often than not this results in burn injuries and the spread of fire. Baking soda can sometimes be used to smother small grease fires in the kitchen. never use water or flour on a cooking fire.
• If you experience an oven fire, close the oven door and turn off the oven. The fire will eventually burn out and usually nothing is damaged. The oven is designed to withstand tremendous amounts of heat and as long as the door remains closed, all should be well.
• Lastly, keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and have a working smoke detector in your home.

As always, if you have a question about kitchen fire safety or any other fire safety concern, do not hesitate to call us at 385-5536 or email the Fire Marshall or email the Deputy Fire Marshall and we will be happy to assist.