Linda Shannon-Hills
A kitchen fire doubles every 30 seconds. That means the four or five minutes before help shows up is a long time. You need something that stops it (or at least slows it down) in seconds, not minutes. Firefighters are pointing people toward an amazingly simple option for this exact reason, because your house won’t wait.
The Kitchen Reality Check
Let us start with the obvious one. Cooking fires account for about half of all home fires, not electrical, heating equipment, or candles. Cooking!
You know that moment when you turn your back on the pan for “just a second” to grab something from the fridge? That’s when it happens. Oil hits its flash point, flames shoot up, and suddenly you are staring at a fire that’s already taller than you are.
With a fire extinguisher, you are spraying chemical powder everywhere. Your kitchen becomes a disaster zone even if you stop the fire.
With water? Don’t even think about it on a grease fire.
With a fire blanket, you approach low, cover the pan, and walk away. The fire suffocates. No chemicals, no mess, no ruined dinner (well, the dinner is probably ruined, but the kitchen isn’t).
You might be thinking, “I already have smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher. Why do I need another thing?”
Smoke detectors tell you there is a problem. They don’t solve it.
Fire extinguishers work great, but they require you to remember how to use them under pressure, aim correctly, and deal with the aftermath of chemical powder coating everything in the room.
Fire blankets require zero training, create zero mess, and work on virtually every type of small fire you’ll encounter in a home.
The thing about fire blankets: they work in the first 30 seconds when the fire is still manageable. When a grease fire flares up on your cooktop, or your toaster decides to become torched, you don’t need to aim, pump, or remember PASS acronyms. You grab, you cover, you’re done.
Beyond the Stove: Other Home Fire Risks
Kitchen fires get all the attention, but there is the garage/workshop fire to consider too. You are working on a project; a spark lands on some oily rags or cardboard. Small flame, easy to stomp out, right? Wrong. By the time you notice it, that flame has found something else to eat. Now it is racing up your workbench toward your paint cans and gas containers.
A fire blanket in the garage means you can smother that small fire before it becomes a structure fire.
You can order online at Amazon or buy at your local hardware store. Be safe!