Preventing kitchen fires

(Slightly modified from Judy’s email:)

Hi all,

I’m still recovering from last night’s adventure. The fire damage was nothing (one indoor grill, two pot holders, one burner cover) compared to the aftermath -- the stench of burnt plastic and the fine dust from the fire extinguisher. I’ve been running fans all day on exhaust and it’s still difficult to breathe in the house.

We recently had a small kitchen fire (fortunately we suffered only smoke damage). We learned several lessons that could save you from smoke damage, a destroyed kitchen, or a lost house.

Some advice:

• If you don’t have a fire extinguisher, get one.
  
  
• If you mount your fire extinguisher in a wall bracket, make sure you can easily remove it from the bracket.
  
  
• If you haven’t checked your fire extinguisher lately to see that it’s still fully charged, do so today. Check it annually.
  
  
• Read the instructions today, because you will not have time during a fire. Re-read them annually. The instructions are printed on the side of the canister, but you won’t even think to look. And you’ll be wearing the wrong glasses.
  
  
• Don’t hesitate to call the fire department. They always know what to do. (I called them between the 3rd spray, which still didn’t put out the fire, and the 4th, which did.)
  
  
• Stay in the kitchen when you are cooking. (A few seconds more and my kitchen would have been destroyed. There wasn’t enough smoke to set off the smoke detectors, so if I hadn’t been in the room, it would have been a disaster rather than an inconvenience.)
  
  
• Have smoke detectors. Check them at least annually (we check monthly; it only takes a minute). Although ours didn’t go off for this small fire, they can still save your life when things go really bad.
  
  
• If you must put an electrical appliance such as, oh, let’s say an indoor grill, on your stovetop, be sure that you turn on the appliance and not the burner beneath it. (OOOPS!)
  
  
• If you’re too tired to cook, do take out.