Cooking Fires and the Holidays

Shockingly, cooking fires now kill more people on average per year in the US than they did in the 1980s. As Thanksgiving approaches—the day with by far the most incidents—we take a look at the growing problem of cooking fires. First, Jesse talks to NFPA communications manager Susan McKelvey about the causes of cooking fires (0:55), why the problem seems to be getting worse, and resources available for educators to turn the trend around. After that, we explore the science behind the viral videos of turkey-fryer fireballs, and why this popular cooking method can be so dangerous (24:07).

Links:

Dangers of Turkey Fryers Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjUynq0HXdQ

NFPA cooking fire resources:

www.nfpa.org/cooking

www.nfpa.org/fpw

NFPA Journal article on new UL smoke detector standards:

https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Publications-and-media/NFPA-Journal/2018/March-April-2018/Features/UL-Smoke-alarm