Photo By Helen Klein | Grease floats on water and any additional water put on a grease fire will just...... read more read more
JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, Va. - While Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall does not experience many fires that are caused by cooking, that doesn’t mean you should let your guard down while you’re in the kitchen.
“Here on the joint base, we are fortunate not to have a rash of kitchen fires,” said JBM-HH Fire Inspector James Dansereau. “We’ve had some minor issues in the barracks, but the sprinkler system put those out.”
Dansereau said that nationally over the past 10 years the number of cooking fires has increased by 12 percent.
“We’re having less fires, but more cooking fires,” he explained.
Dansereau explained that grease floats on water and that any additional water put on it will just splatter the grease throughout the room, potentially spreading the fire.
“There’s a lot of myths about grease fires,” Dansereau said. “The worse thing to do is reach for water because that spreads the grease.”
Firefighters use either water or a dry powder mixture to put grease fires out, he said.
“We come in with 150 gallons per minute of water, so it overcomes the fire,” Dansereau said.
He said to safely put out a grease fire you should turn off the stove and find a lid large enough to cover the burning pan.
“In a worse-case scenario, put a wet kitchen towel on it, but that would be the last resort to do,” he said.
There are several things you can do to minimize your risk for a grease fire in your kitchen, according to Dansereau.
- Keep your kitchen clean.
- Keep combustibles such as pot holders and towels away from your cooking surface.
- Stay in the kitchen with your cooking, especially if you’re frying something or using high heat.
- Don’t let anything touch hot pans.
- Keep appliances in good working order.
- Turn pot and pan handles inward.
- Institute a 3-foot no kid and no pet zone around a hot stove.
“I have oven locks at home for my toddler,” Dansereau added.
| Date Taken: | 03.26.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 03.26.2015 12:23 |
| Story ID: | 158170 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 101 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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