What's cooking for FPW?

NFPA Journal, Sep/Oct 2006 by Lebeau, Amy

Add a dash of safety for Fire Prevention Week

NFPA PROGRAMS: Fire Prevention Week

I am the first to admit that my cooking skills leave much to be desired. My idea of cooking a gourmet meal is using one of Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meal recipes. So when "Prevent Cooking Fires: Watch What You Heat," was chosen for the theme of Fire Prevention Week, October 8-14 2006, I was a bit apprehensive.

Given that cooking fires are the leading cause of home fires and home fire injuries and unattended cooking is the leading cause of home cooking fires, this year's theme is well warranted.

FACTS: More fires start in the kitchen than in any other part of the home. Why is the kitchen such a danger zone? Too often people fail to pay attention to whafs cooking, and the consequences can be far worse than burned food. Like any home fire, cooking fires spread quickly, leaving you just minutes to escape safely.

Educating people on how to be safer in the kitchen is crucial. NFPA put a team together of members from the public education and research divisions with the goal of Grafting cooking safety messages that the public could use that were not only functional, but also practical and realistic.

In an ideal world, people would follow all the safety messages we put out there. But as educators and fire and life safety professionals, we know that this doesn't happen. A bike helmet isn't always worn when we ride with our kids; the crosswalk isn't always used when crossing the street, and cooking is left unattended in many homes. We need to give people safety advice they can use and the blanket statement of never leaving cooking unattended just doesn't work anymore. Specific kinds of cooking call for different levels of attention. Mere are just some of the tips for safer cooking for this year's campaign:

Stay in the kitchen when you are frying, grilling, or broiling food.

If you leave the kitchen for even a short period, turn off the stove.

If you are simmering, boiling, baking or roasting food, check it regularly, remain in the home while food is cooking, and use a timer to remind you that the stove or oven is on.

Another big part of safety in the kitchen is keeping children safe.

Keep kids away from cooking areas by enforcing a "kid-free zone" of 3 feet (1 meter) around the stove.

When young children are in the home, use the stove's back burners whenever possible, and turn pot handles back to reduce the risk that pots with hot contents will be knocked over.

Never hold a small child while cooking.

This is just a sample of what you will find in this year's FPW product line and on the FPW Web site, www.firepreventionweek.org. Also on the web, classroom lesson plans, letters home to parents, FPW Fast Facts, a radio PSA and fill-in-the-blank press releases. We've created an age- appropriate guide for parents to gauge what children can do in the kitchen, a template to create a "Kid-free zone" to illustrate to kids exactly how far to stay away from the stove and an FPW Blog, firepreventionweek.blogspot.com, written by NFPA's Assistant Vice President of Public Education, Judy Comoletti.

Whether you are a novice cook or a gourmet chef, cooking safety should be the #1 ingredient in your kitchen. Here's to a great FPW and to helping your community to "Prevent Cooking Fires."

AMY LEBEAU is Communications Manager for NFPA Public Education division.