grease fire in the oven archived

Tom_Reingold

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:13am

I broil salmon by rubbing olive oil on it. I put aluminum foil on the broiler pan and put it in the oven. The broiler burner is in the top of the oven. This is a gas oven.

I placed the rack too high, so the salmon was extremely close to the burner. After dripping off the salmon and onto the aluminum foil, the oil caught on fire.

The smoke alarms rang through the house. We have the new kind, where all alarms ring at once.

My kids panicked and started yelling. They had never seen a grease fire before. I had, but I never put one out before. When I opened the door, the flames came up the front of the oven and blackened it.

My daughter yelled at me and suggested putting the fire out with water. I knew that was the wrong thing to do.

I used a potholder and pulled the pan out, with flames rising from it. I carried it out the back door of the kitchen and rested it on the rail of the deck. Then I went back to the house and grabbed a box of baking soda. My daughter yelled at me for risking starting another fire with the wood deck and the tree overhanging it. I tossed the baking soda on, and the fire went out immediately.

We keep a fire extinguisher near the kitchen, but I didn't think of it soon enough.

I later looked up grease fires on the web. The advice there conflicts. One article said don't throw anything on it; just call 911. That doesn't seem right.

Most advice says put a lid on it, but that assumes that the fire is on the stovetop and that there is a lid that fits the pan. Neither was true here.

Some advice says not to carry the pan because you could spill the grease. That's true, and I was damned lucky that I carried it well and didn't spill anything.

How can we prepare ourselves for this? I am proud I thought quickly and we averted disaster, but I'd like to do better next time.

The front of the oven is slightly discolored, and some burner knobs will need replacement.

calliope

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:27am

The best thing you can do with a grease fire is smother it.Turn off the oven,and let the grease burn off, if your fire extinguisher is not at hand. Throwing baking soda on it was good, but any cover would have been better.

Opening the oven door gave it a fresh, unlimited supply of oxygen and caused the flashback.

Where is our resident firefighter?

You were lucky, Tom.
Happy Thanksgiving

bobk

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:28am

Tom, an ABC (that is the rating) fire extinguisher would have been you best choice after turning off the broiler, but wouldn't have been anywhere near as exciting. I don't think you are alone in forgetting you had a fire extinguisher available.

Insurance should buy you a new stove.

eyetry

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:32am Edited

Hey Tom...I probably would have done everything the way you did it.Good job! Sorry about the whole incident but ya did good!I might have tried flour or baking soda to extinguishthe flames...if I could have thought about where they were exactly........I don't bake much. Hope your all settled now. Were you saying "Calgon take me away"? lol I'll be checking back to see what I should have done if it were my calamity oh oh

Corey

joan_crystal

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:32am Edited

Rather than ask the pundits on MOL, why not call the fire station (non-emergency number) and ask what they would recommend? There advice is apt to be much better than ours and this is a major safety issue you are dealing with here.

I recently studied up on various types of fire extinguishers for an examination I am writing and learned that commercial kitchens use a Class K fire extinguisher for fighting grease fires in commercial fryers. There are several fire extinguisher supply companies in the area which carry them. Don't know if that is what you need in this situation but it would likely have done the job. I don't know if ABC extinguishers - the type most of us have in our homes - would have handled that type of fire effectively, even if you had thought to use one. You are absolutely right in not using water to fight the fire; it would only have served to spread it.

Tom_Reingold

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:42am

Good advice, Joan. We're friendly with Captain Dennis of the Maplewood Fire Department, who is a good neighbor. I'll ask him. He's extremely helpful.

Yes, I'm sure the water would splatter and toss hot drops all over. And oil is lighter than water, so it would stay on top and keep burning.

tjohn

Nov 22, 2007 at 5:49am

All I want to know was whether or not the salmon was ruined. This is very much like having a bad fall while holding a beer. The only important thing is whether or not you spilled the beer.

As an aside, never use flour. The right proportions of flour and air are combustible.

bookbabe66

Nov 22, 2007 at 6:08am

Tom are you OK with the oven for dinner tonight. We are not using our and you can have it if you are without one.
Happy to hear that everything turned out OK

Tom_Reingold

Nov 22, 2007 at 7:17am

Oh, right. We managed to save all the salmon, believe it or not. I had already taken out most, because most of us like it rare. Reingold Daughter 1.0 likes it well done, so it was only her portion I was cooking. And none of it got ruined. Well, there were tiny morsels which were charred, and I gave them to the dog and cats.

bobk

Nov 22, 2007 at 7:44am

Must be an easier way to do blackened salmon. :bigsmile:

tom

Nov 22, 2007 at 8:04am

An ounce of prevention for next time: Don't put the foil on the top of the broiler pan. Instead, line the bottom with it. It's designed to let fat drip down and stay out of the way of the open fire. Lots of people do it the wrong way so that there's less to clean up, but obviously it can be more trouble than it's worth.

Scarlet

Nov 22, 2007 at 8:18am

The fire may even have gone out if you had kept the door on the oven closed. Glad it all worked out Tom, that is very scary!

fed123

Nov 22, 2007 at 9:23am

Tom: Glad you put the fire out without too much damage. Thanks for reminding me to recall just where our fire extinguishers are located and to tell everybody who lives here.

USMNTFan

Nov 22, 2007 at 10:36am

The times I've had to deal with this I've used salt. Baking soda would make sense too - it totally covered it and stopped more oxygen from getting to it.

Cutting slits in the foil and lining the bottom of the pan is indubitably going to help too.

spontaneous

Nov 22, 2007 at 3:04pm

Flames coming out of the oven that melted the knobs? You should have called 911. You wouldn't believe just how quickly a fire can get out of control. You were very lucky that it didn't spread, and extremely lucky that you didn't burn yourself with the hot oil while carrying it out. Your daughter was right about the risks of putting the still burning tray out on the deck railing.

If you call 911 and you manage to get the fire out before they arrive, they aren't going to yell at you. They'll check out the kitchen to make sure it's safe, and they'll also ventilate the house. Better safe than sorry where life and property are concerned.

shh

Nov 23, 2007 at 3:53am

I think we had a grease fire in the oven once and I just turned off the oven and didn't open it. I don't want those flames coming out at me!

The other day I was pan frying some dumplings in a cast iron pan and steaming others in the next burner. Some oil from the pan caught on fire and the flames shot up. My girls screamed! I shut the burner and everything was fine in a moment.

cppkqp

Nov 23, 2007 at 4:58am

Sorry to hear what happened, but glad everyone is ok. So glad you remembered NOT to use water, but baking soda instead. I've heard the advice that sand works well too, but who keeps a bucket of sand in the kitchen?

We have a fire extinguisher in our kitchen, but I don't know how it works. Your post reminds me that I should read the directions NOW, not in the midst of an event.

We cook salmon under the broiler often, but we make foil packets, so that everything is contained. I've always liked this method because it requires only the tiniest amount of added fat (olive oil to coat the foil) and results in very moist salmon. Now I have a new reason to like it even more.

BlueEyedMe

Nov 23, 2007 at 10:38am Edited

We had a similar situation earlier this year with some bacon wrapped scallops. Interestingly, I remembered we had fire extinguishers yet totally failed to think about turning off the broiler and/or just shutting the oven door. So I shot the extinguisher inside the oven and only afterwards realized turning off the source of the flames would probably have been a great first strategy. I also momentarily forgot how to use the fire extinguisher even though I've had several jobs where I had to be trained in how to use them -- I don't remember what my mistake was, but I know I grabbed the first extinguisher, pulled the pin, then did something wrong and nothing happened, so I grabbed the other one we keep on hand and finally got that one to work after I realized I was doing something really, really dumb. It's amazing the things you can blank out on when your brain is going "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!", I'm glad things turned out as well as they did in both our situations, with no major damage and no one getting hurt.

FWIW, cleaning everything up after I used the fire extinguisher was a real b*tch. I'm not advocating against them, not by a longshot, and I know the mess I caused with it is nothing compared to the damage of a real fire, I just wish I'd thought of taking some other steps first. Plus it ruined my scallops. :cry:

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