Happy Oven Fire Day...

As a lot of you know, I am a career firefighter. Today, the day before Thanksgiving, is often our busiest day of the year.

Oven fires.

A lot of people only seem to cook one day each year: Thanksgiving. Most haven't cleaned their oven in approximately 366 days. It's okay to hit that self-cleaning button today, but just scrape out the big stuff first and don't forget to remove those cutting boards that you store inside all year. Expect it to smoke a lot as it works and remember that you won't be able to open the oven door mid-cycle as it has a thermo-lock. If you have a smoke detector near the kitchen, it will probably go off.

Also worth noting: Tomorrow afternoon is the big day for first heart attacks.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'll be at work...

Tomorrow also the always entertaining turkey fryer accident day. It seems like about half the people I know that tried one has hurt themselves or set something on fire.

They also smoke up the entire neighborhood. Thanksgiving Day has gotten very predictable.

How do you cook frozen pizza if you only use your oven once a year?

I've had real good success opening the hood, laying the food product in a safe place, closing the hood and letting it run for a while. Nice and hot.

1. My sister forgot she was cooking Mac & Cheese one day and smoked the apartment complex out once. My friends response to the fire fighters: "Oh! You guys got all dressed up for us!"

2. Tonight is Guns & Hoses, so a sincere St. Louis thank you to any fire fighters or police officers. (Go police )

3. I'll be at work, too Woody. You're not alone. Off at 2p, though.

mtn wrote: How do you cook frozen pizza if you only use your oven once a year?

Call Domino's for one of theirs.

When we were first married I was watching TV while the wife was making dinner. I overhear her on the phone with her uncle who is a fireman "Uncle Pete, what should I do for a grease fire?"

Curious I got up to look and sure enough we had a raging grease fire singeing the wallpaper. Throwing the flaming pan out the window into the snow may not have been the best answer but it worked. The guy downstairs had a bit of a meltdown though. How should I know rebels had torched his village when he was a kid

I put a pot of water on for tea a couple afternoons ago, and forgot about it when the kids got me distracted with some thing or other. Remembered it much later with an "oh, shyte!" The pot was long dry and as hot as the surface of the sun. It was a copper bottom pot and it left a difficult-to-remove residue on my smoothtop range. The copper cladding had started to bubble away from the stainless body of the pot and the inside seems to be rusting now. Hmmm. Must try to remember not to do that again. At least I didn't burn anything else up.

"Pot on the Stove" is how most kitchen fires begin.

An oven fire will take a out a kitchen and a kitchen fire will take down a house.

Also be careful if running somebody else's stove, I about burned the building down a few months ago rendering down bacon scraps on my E36 M3ty apartment's stove. Which is a check in every 5 minutes exercise, till you decide it can take a little more heat and forget that this stove is like 1/4 turn from simmer to wide berking open. I luckily caught it smoking like crazy rather than on fire.

Wally wrote: How should I know rebels had torched his village when he was a kid

It's pretty insensitive not to have asked.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

My stupid iPhone flaged your post by mistake

Wally wrote: In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker: My stupid iPhone flaged your post by mistake

My whole village was flagged by rebels when I was a kid.

N Sperlo wrote: 2. Tonight is Guns & Hoses, so a sincere St. Louis thank you to any fire fighters or police officers. (Go police )

https://www.facebook.com/events/196695613852204/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Guns-and-Hoses-Hockey-of-Central-Illinois/123703834512?ref=stream&directed_target_id=196695613852204

We have ours for hockey in Springfield, IL on December 14th. I'll be there reffing the game, the odds are heavily in favor of the boys in blue with their ringer. He usually ensures that they will win by 1 goal. We expect it to turn into something of a boxing match, and are trying to iron out the rules for fighting right now.

mtn wrote: How do you cook frozen pizza if you only use your oven once a year?

In reply to mtn:

that sounds like a pretty sweet gig. you get to cheap-shot anyone while "breaking up" their fight?

My wife's sister & husband have had 3-kitchen fires in the last 10-years ago or so. I'd almost think it was a diabolical plot to get a kitchen remodel periodically, but they rarely cook.

AngryCorvair wrote: In reply to mtn: that sounds like a pretty sweet gig. you get to cheap-shot anyone while "breaking up" their fight?

Haha, no, I'll try to avoid that. The ringer though is another referee, so I could have him do my dirty work...

I'm getting paid (very well) for this game too. Almost all of it will be going back to the charity though.

In my last apartment complex the guy next to us left a pot on. About 12:30am the smoke detector went off, and the fire department showed up. One very burnt pot, and god did it smell. That "burnt metal" smell lingers in the memory.

There's a lady who does a cooking show on the radio locally and she always advises to absolutely not use your self cleaning function this week. According to her, if your oven is marginal, the self cleaning cycle will cause it to go out the rest of the way, and finding someone to repair it or a place that's open to buy parts locally late on Wednesday is nigh impossible.

Another pro-tip: If you do have a turkey fryer fire you might recall that there's a common household white powder in your kitchen that you learned in high school could be used to extinguish a fire. Flour is what powers a grain elevator explosion. Baking soda is good for extinguishing. My dad sold another kitchen to a family's insurance company about two or three months after he sold and installed the family a new kitchen because they dumped a bag of flour on a flaming turkey fryer, and it took out the side of the house.

Oh, and my only kitchen fire stories:
I was 10 years old and making toast. Crumb fell off, right onto the hot wire, and up in flames it went. Unplugged it and waited for it to go out.

Last week I was making pasta, and one of the uncooked noodles fell into the flame (gas stove). It ignited. I blew it out. Smelled horrible.

In reply to mtn:

I once tried to reheat bacon in the toaster with my toast, to save a step.

Bacon grease flames in a toaster oven are very clean burning.

Burnt fish is the worst.

Several years ago, I had some corn tortillas, and I was heating one up in the toaster-oven (before I realized they are kinda gross if you don't fry them).
It reached a certain temperature and I think it started to burn the edges of the tortilla and smoke a little, so I pulled the door open to let some heat out.
Well, there must have been a fair amount of oil or something in these, as soon as I opened the door the tortilla caught fire very quickly and a good sized flame escaped out the front.
I shut it quickly and I think it burned out in a few seconds.
Wasn't quite enough to ignite the cupboard right above it, but would easily have lit a sheet of paper on fire had there been one right there.