Prevent cooking fires

By Heather

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), cooking fires are the number one cause of home fires and home injuries. The leading cause of fires in the kitchen is unattended cooking. It’s important to be alert to prevent cooking fires.

Here are some basic safety tips to keep you safe in the kitchen from NFPA:

Stay in the kitchen while you are frying, grilling or broiling food. If you leave the kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove.
If you are simmering, baking, roasting or boiling food, check it regularly. Remain in the home while food is cooking, and use a timer to remind you that you are cooking.
Keep anything that can catch fire — oven mitts, wooden utensils, food packaging, towels or curtains — away from your stovetop.

Here are a few of my own mama-tested tips:

Teach your kids r-e-s-p-e-c-t for the HOT oven. I make sure my children are in the other room or watching from the doorway when I open the oven. You can mark off the “safe zone” with an area rug as well.
Wear close-fitting or short sleeves. There’s nothing like a loose, drapey sleeve to catch fire on a random burner. Though these clothing fires are not as frequent as food igniting, they’re more lethal.
Keep pots and pans on the back burners when practical. Turn handles inward (or sideways) so they don’t get accidentally bumped.
Get in the habit of doing a visual sweep to see that the knobs are in the OFF position when you walk away from the oven. It may sound simple, but I bet we’ve all forgotten a burner for a little too long.

Accidents happen, so make sure that your safety equipment is up-to-date and easy-to-access: all smoke detectors should be properly installed with working batteries and make sure you know how to use your fire extinguisher properly.