Cooking

Cooking is one of the major causes of fires in the home. The following video, created by our Community Safety Officer Laraine, explains how to stay safe at home when cooking. Please watch, and scroll below for some additional advice.

Please take care in the kitchen and follow these simple tips to stay safe when cooking.

• Keep your cooker clean, especially grill pans where grease can build up and catch fire;
• Don't be distracted while cooking by your mobile phone, callers or other people;
• If you need to leave the kitchen while cooking take pans off the heat or turn them down to prevent them overheating and catching fire;
• Turn saucepan handles to prevent you accidentally knocking them over
• Keep saucepan handles out of the reach of children;
• Take care if wearing loose clothing that can easily catch fire;
• Keep tea towels and cloths away from the cooker and hob as they can also easily catch fire;
• Hot oil easily catches fire, if its smoking turn it down and leave it to cool;
• Use a thermostat controlled electric deep fat fryer which heats to oil to the right temperature but stops it from overheating;
• If hot oil catches fire do not take any risks - leave it where it is, turn off the heat if it's safe to do so, then get out and ring 999;
• Never throw water on burning oil. It create a fireball that will spread the flames and cause you serious injury;
• Double check all appliances are off when you've finished cooking. Leaving the cooker on can cause residual oil, fat or grease to catch fire.