Kitchen Fires: Smart Cooking Is the Best Deterrent

5/7/2018 (Permalink)

Better safe than sorry is more than a cliché. When it comes to avoiding kitchen fires, it’s one of the best tips ever.

Whether you cook to survive or the kitchen is the heart of your home, it’s the most likely room for home fires to start. By following a few basic tips, you can easily prevent kitchen fires and avoid the heartbreak of fire damage to your beloved appliances and keepsakes.

Avoid a Disaster While in the Kitchen

Many people know the best way to extinguish a grease fire is by smothering it or using a fire extinguisher — never use water, which makes these fires spread and intensify. However, the best way to prevent any kitchen fires from starting in Raleigh, NC, is smart cooking:

1. Wearing flowing clothes like kaftans and robes with gull-wing sleeves while cooking may sound like fun. However, those styles increase the chance of the cook catching fire when the loose material hits a hot burner or oven element.
2. Grease buildup on stove surfaces, under burners and in the interior of the oven easily catches fire, so keep those areas clean.
3. Never walking away from a stove while broiling, grilling or frying is one of the best tips to avoid kitchen fires. The high temperatures required for all those cooking methods make them the most dangerous, and even a few seconds out of the room is enough time for food or grease to ignite.
4. Timers aren’t just for baking. It’s easy to get distracted, so set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes when you leave the room and come back for a minute to occasionally stir the sauce, taste the soup, or just make sure everything is on track.
5. Keep your stovetop and adjacent surfaces free of everything flammable, including curtains, food packaging, bags, potholders and wooden kitchen tools.
6. It’s easy to get caught up in serving, eating and cleaning up when you cook. Before leaving home or retiring for the night, take a minute to double-check that all small appliances, ovens and stovetops are switched off.

Better safe than sorry is more than a cliché. When it comes to avoiding kitchen fires, it’s one of the best tips ever. Contact your local fire department in Raleigh, NC, with questions or concerns about home fire prevention. For more information, visit http://www.SERVPROeastraleighzebulon.com/.