Holiday Cooking Tips From Chaffee County Fire
By Brian Welch
Gobble Gobble. That’s right, Thanksgiving is coming up soon. It’s a day of family, feasting, and one giant ham for all to enjoy. That is of course, if you decide not to light your house on fire.
Thanksgiving Day has more residential structure fires than any other day of the year. Can you guess the common cause? Cooking! Over 40% of Thanksgiving home fires originate around the stove and oven. Any other day would see 25% of the fires originating from cooking. The problem is that reducing the amount of fires in the kitchen is VERY EASY, yet they are so prevalent. In order to reduce cooking fires you do not need to spend any money on special safety equipment, nor do you need to attend a technical kitchen safety class. You just need to use a bit of common sense.
For example:
- Attend your cooking. If the stove is ON, then you need to be in the kitchen, not greeting people at the door.
- Cooking is a messy job, so roll up your shirt sleeves and take off your jacket. It doesn’t take much for loose clothing to catch on fire.
- Keep the stovetop clear. Pot holders and dishrags should never be placed on or near the stove.
- Remind the kids to stay away from the stove.
- Keep all handles turned in, so the children can’t reach them.
With that being said, lets move on to one of the biggest and most dangerous Thanksgiving cooking trends. The Fried Turkey. A Thanksgiving staple in the Deep South, the fried turkey has been growing in popularity in our mountain valley for the past 10 years. And for good reason, a fried turkey is a tasty bird, but please heed a few warnings.
- The turkey fryers are often very unstable, so keep it on flat ground, upgrade your old 3 legged stand to one with 4 legs, and if you insist on drinking beer while frying, sit in a chair. This is not an area for stumbling around.
- Keep children and pets away. Even when you are finished frying, the oil will remain hot for hours.
- For the love of God, DO NOT fry your turkey in the house, in the garage, or on your deck. I have to say this, because it continues to be a problem. Keep this potential fireball away from anything combustible. You live in the mountains and should be able to handle a bit of cold nasty weather, so there is absolutely no reason to fry that bird inside.
- Do not over fill the pot with oil, do not over heat the oil, and do not fry a turkey that is not completely thawed. All of these will make the hot oil over flow and ignite.
- Keep the propane tank as far away from the oil as the hose will allow.
- Keep an all-purpose fire extinguisher near by, and know when to dial 9-1-1 if anything gets beyond your control.
- And of course, spend a few minutes reading the instructions, then follow them.
We firefighters of the Chaffee County Fire Protection District will gladly leave our family on Thanksgiving Day, to come help those of you in need. For your sake, for our sake, please be safe. “We are there, because we care.”
