Cooking Fires

6/9/2021 (Permalink)

In a blog post a few months ago we discussed space heaters and the fire risk they present.  Space Heaters are the second most common cause of home fires.  But the number one cause of home fires is cooking.

According to the NFPA “US fire departments responded to an estimated average of 172,900 home structure fires per year started by cooking activities in 2014-2018.  These fires caused an average of 550 civilian deaths, 4,820 reported civilian fire injuries, and more than $1 billion in direct property damage per year.”

The top causes of cooking fires are:

• Placing combustible items too close to the stove or other heat source such as oven mitts, pizza boxes, dish rags etc…
• Unintentionally turning on the stove or heating element, or forgetting to turn it off
• Leaving cooking food unattended

Keep these things in mind when cooking because every year we get many calls for fires caused for each of these reasons.