Tommy Gregory, interim fire marshal for the Town of Chapel Hill, referred to the association’s safety tips for cooking fires and said it was important for people to take caution when in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.
Gregory’s tips for Thanksgiving fire safety include turning pot and pan handles in, so children aren’t tempted to play with them, wearing tight clothing to lessen the chance of fabric getting caught on fire and never leaving the kitchen unattended when cooking.
Gregory said he remembered incidents happening when turkey fryers first came out — everyone wanted to use them, but may not have known how to use them properly.
Cooking a turkey is a long process that leaves little room for cutting corners, even on a hectic Thanksgiving Day. Gregory said never put a frozen turkey in a turkey fryer, as forgetting to turn down the gas when doing so could cause the oil to boil over — potentially starting a fire.
“If you set it on fire, it can potentially set the deck on fire, and that seemed to be the place where people wanted to cook,” Gregory said, referring to previous accidents in Chapel Hill.
Even though UNC sophomore Kayla Wolverton and her family stopped celebrating Thanksgiving after her grandfather’s death, fire safety wasn’t something she and her mom thought about when cooking on Thanksgiving.
“We didn’t really take an exceptional amount of caution when it came to kitchen stuff,” Wolverton said. “My mom’s always responsible for consistently the same dishes — even if it’s the same stuff. It was always an adventure to help her cook, get it all in the car and take it to my grandparents’ house.”
Wolverton said it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of Thanksgiving Day and want to speed up the cooking process in order to eat all the good food faster.
