Stay safe while cooking this Thanksgiving
While you’re enjoying time with family and friends this Thanksgiving weekend, the Minneapolis Fire Department wants to make sure you stay safe when preparing your holiday meals. There are more cooking fires on Thanksgiving Day than any other day of the year in the U.S. Sixty-nine percent of home fires on Thanksgiving Day are cooking fires, as opposed to an average of 42 percent the rest of the year*. To help folks stay safe in the kitchen during Thanksgiving and throughout the year, the City of Minneapolis has produced a kitchen fire safety video that is available in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong on the City’s YouTube channel.
*Source: http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v11i5.pdf
The Minneapolis Fire Department also encourages folks to follow these simple rules whenever they’re cooking:
- Have working smoke alarms – the photoelectric type are better to have near the kitchen.
- Remain in the kitchen when using the stovetop. If you have to leave, turn the stovetop off until you return.
- Stay awake, and in the house, while using the oven. If you have to leave the house, turn the oven off until you return.
- Keep your cooking area clean; keep towels, hot pad holders, storage containers, and other combustibles away from the hot stove.
- Keep children and pets away from the oven and stove.
For more information about fire safety visit www.minneapolismn.gov/fire.
Published Nov. 16, 2012