Custom Home Building, Remodeling and Restoration: Avoid Disasters When Deep Frying A Thanksgiving Turkey

scottsdale fire restoration company There is nothing worse than experiencing a major fire during the holiday season. Sadly, this phenomena is growing; as more homeowners discover how amazing deep frying a Thanksgiving turkey can taste. However, there are a few things that you can do that will permit you to enjoy a nice holiday turkey safely without having to worry about the potential of fire or other damage being done to your home.

Here are three simple tips to consider that will help you avoid the dreaded Thanksgiving turkey disaster.

First – Don’t Deep Fry Inside Your Home

According to the US Department of Energy, nearly 75% of holiday season fires inside homes are caused by mistakes in food preparation. In recent years, these fires have been caused by homeowners who make the decision to deep fry their turkeys indoors. Whether it’s due to bad weather or just a desire to cook inside, deep frying a turkey indoors is simply a bad idea.

When you deep fry a turkey, hot oil boils over the kettle and often spills on the direct flame underneath and can ignite items inside a home like carpet, cabinets, furniture and chairs in an instant. It’s always recommended to deep fry turkeys 100% completely outdoors. It might seem attractive to do this inside a garage, but this is also a very dangerous potential situation.

Second – Keep Turkey Under Constant Supervision

deep frying a thanksgiving turkey Cooking a turkey outdoors will significantly reduce your chances of having to call a Scottsdale fire restoration company to repair fire damage caused by a cooking issue. However, even outdoor cooking can cause potential fire issues when you’re trying to prepare that perfect holiday turkey. Most fire departments indicate that the majority of deep fried turkey fires occur because they are left unattended.

As we stated above, grease and cooking oil is going to spill during the cooking process. But even if you’re outdoors, the cooking oil can catch fire and spread rather quickly if there are combustible items around the cooking area. It’s due to these facts that making sure to keep a good eye on the deep frying turkey during the entire cooking cycle is a smart idea to prevent a fire and needing to call your fire damage insurance provider.

Third – Have Resources to Extinguish Fires

Even if you’re cooking outdoors and keeping an eye on the turkey during the entire cook time, the reality is that if a fire starts; most people are not prepared to put it out. The first thing to remember is that you’re dealing with a highly combustible material in cooking oil and that you can’t use water to put these fires out correctly. Water is going to simply cause the oil to splash further, leading to more items catching on fire potentially. As such, it’s recommended by local fire departments to keep a fire extinguisher that is rated to put out oil fires on standby. Another way to reduce the spread of fire is to remove oxygen from the equation by smothering the fire with a large metal container.

Turkey that is deep fried tastes delicious when it cooked correctly. Cooking time is reduced to mere minutes as opposed to hours of traditional baking. However, nobody wants to spend Thanksgiving on the phone with the fire department or having to call a home restoration company in Scottsdale to complete fire damaged home repair. Always take the right safety precautions to ensure that you have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday by cooking any deep fried turkey the right way.

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Peak One Builders & Restoration are Scottsdale’s trusted disaster recovery and restoration specialists, call us today at (480) 378-0611.