The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has selected “Prevent Cooking Fires: Watch What You Heat” as this year’s theme for Fire Prevention Week, scheduled for Oct. 8-14.
NFPA studies show three out of four injuries reported each year occur in the home; cooking fires are the No. 1 cause of home fires and home fire injuries. Home cooking fires kill hundreds of Americans and injure roughly 4,000 more each year. In addition to death and injury, cooking fires destroy homes and their contents, causing a half-billion dollars in damages annually.
The NFPA offers detailed information about home cooking fires, including a report entitled “Home Cooking Fire Patterns and Trends,” along with advice for cooking safely and other valuable resources on the official Fire Prevention Week Web site, www.firepreventionweek.org. The NFPA also offers the following tips for safer cooking:
Stand by Your Pan
– Stay in the kitchen when you are frying, grilling, broiling or boiling food.
– If you must leave the kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove.
– If you are simmering, baking or roasting food, check it regularly, remain in the home while food is cooking and use a timer to remind you that the stove or oven is on.
– Do not wear loose clothing or dangling sleeves while cooking. Loose clothing can catch fire if it comes in contact with a gas flame or electric burner.
No Kids Allowed
– Keep kids away from cooking areas by enforcing a kid-free zone of 3 feet (1 meter) around the stove.
– If you have young children, use the stove’s back burners whenever possible, and turn pot handles inward to reduce the risk that pots with hot contents will be knocked over.
– Never hold a small child while cooking.
Keep It Clean
– Keep anything that can catch fire-pot holders, oven mitts, wooden utensils, paper or plastic bags, food packaging, towels or curtains-away from your stovetop.
– Clean up food and grease from burners and the stovetop.
Fire Prevention Week is an annual public awareness and safety commemoration, which is proclaimed by the President of the United States each year and is observed by fire departments in the United States and Canada to mark the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
