Monday, August 30, 2004

Grease fire!

Last night I experienced a BBQ grease fire and I must say, it was a scary moment. I was cooking chicken and the grease trap at the bottom of the BBQ caught fire. Unfortunately this is not an easy place to put out a fire since it's is below the grill but it can still draw in oxygen and it's quite close to the propane tank! Here's what I did:
  • Shut off the gas and the burners. In retrospect, I should probably have taken the tank off then - I was somewhat concerned at the time that there might still be gas in the line that might catch. Probably the best thing to do would be shut off the gas immediately and let the burners run till the line is empty. But getting the tank off if the fire gets out of control is the difference between a fire and an explosion.
  • Took a moment to think - there are lots of stupid things you can do and you need to consider your options which at this point were:
    • Spray the grease trap with the hose. Probably would work but it's a grease fire and I was concerned that this might just spread the fire around (in retrospect, this is probably true to some extent but I think it could be dealt with).
    • Spray the grease trap with a chemical extinguisher (if you have one!)
    • Call 911
    Since I had a chemical extinguisher, I chose to do that with calling 911 as a backup plan.
  • Spraying the grease trap put out the fire (and made a big mess) but the fire re-started. So I sprayed again and it restarted again. Meanwhile the temp guage on the grill was at the maximum so at this point, my level headed wife called 911
  • Continued to spray the fire - important point: the smaller chemical extinguishers are only good for about 6 - 10 small shots. Again, using the hose would probably have been a better choice at this point since it would have cooled things off more. Eventually the fire was out and the temp guage started to decrease.
  • DON'T OPEN THE LID -- EVEN IF THE FIRE IS OUT. Tempting as it is, I left the lid closed to prevent re-ingniting the fire
  • Fire truck showed up - I was standing in the driveway (having heard them coming) which they seemed to appreciate. They were pretty nice about the whole thing "That's what we're here for" so I would recommend you err on the side of calling them. They (carefully!) opened the lid to make sure the fire was out and looked over the BBQ to make sure it was not damaged. The fire was fairly constrained to the grease trap (the chicken wasn't even really burned).
Lessons I have learned from this:
  • Always have a chemical extinguisher nearby if your grilling
  • Keep a closer eye on the grill!
  • Clean out your grease trap - mine had collected junk for close to a year. There's a reason they detach!
  • Remove the tank if possible
  • Spraying with a hose is probably ok
  • If your on the fence about calling 911 - call them!
Info about BBQ Fires

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

spraying it would water would be BAD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGzbd0IvUE

:)

1:38 PM  

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