Fire Department Wishes All Happy--and Safe--Thanksgiving

The Effingham Fire Department and the City of Effingham would like to wish everyone a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving – and remind everyone that the average number of reported residential fires is double on Thanksgiving than all other days.

With this in mind, the Fire Department would like to share a few safety tips as part of our overall Community Risk Reduction Strategy. Overall, the majority of Thanksgiving Day fires in residential buildings took place in one and two family dwellings (63%) – followed by multi-family dwellings (32 %) according to National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics. Almost half -48% of those fires occurred from 10am – 4pm, when most people were preparing their Thanksgiving dinner.

The leading cause of fires in residential buildings on Thanksgiving hands down is cooking said Fire Chief Bob Tutko - in review of the data form the National Fire Incident Reporting System, cooking was the cause of fire in 76.5% of all incidents with other causes (candles, smoking materials and alike) at 16.4% - with heating accounting for 7.1% of Thanksgiving Day fires. Speaking of cooking, we know that Fryers are a popular way to cook the Turkey- however; we need to make sure to use the Fryers safely. Never use an outdoor fryer on a wooden deck or inside the garage, remember Turkey Fryers can easily tip over spilling hot oil across a large area. "In addition an overfilled pot will cause hot oil to spill over once the turkey is placed inside the pot – and remember a partially frozen turkey placed in hot oil will cause the hot oil to splatter, and the lid and handles tend to be hot which can lead to burn injuries", said Chief Tutko.

Remember – never leave cooking food on a stove unattended, keep the kids out of the kitchen or properly supervised to minimize the risk of burn injuries and keep a fire extinguisher handy. In case of a fire on the stove, never use water on grease fire- cover the pan with an appropriate sized lid and shut off the burner. If a fire does occur in the oven- shut off the oven and keep the oven door closed and call the fire department. Make sure you have a working smoke detector on every floor of your home and if you have not checked the operation of your smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector, now is the time to do that to help insure a Happy Thanksgiving. You can also visit the Fire Department Facebook page for additional Fire safety information, including worksheets and videos.