Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) is warning people to turn off the heat before they eat this Christmas as they continue to raise awareness of kitchen safety with their ‘Recipe for Success COOK’ campaign.
Whether cooking a small Christmas dinner or cooking a huge family feast, nobody wants spoiled sprouts and a ruined roast this Christmas, so the Fire Service wants to remind people to ‘keep looking when cooking’.
50% of all accidental fires in the home across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight over the last few years started in the kitchen.
When life gets busy it’s easy for everyone to get distracted, With Christmas coming up people may be planning to cook for extra family and friends. Whether it’s presents, playing party games or enjoying a few festive drinks, all that festive fun means it’s even easier to get distracted while cooking, so don’t leave your Christmas dinner unattended.
With the Recipe for Success COOK campaign, HIWFRS hopes to simplify kitchen safety with their easy to remember list of ingredients:
- CLEAR – Keep tea towels, cloths and electrical leads away from the oven and hob.
- OVEN– Switch off the oven and hob when you’ve finished cooking and remove pans from the heat.
- OIL– A build-up of cooking oil/grease can increase the risk of cooking fires so clean regularly.
- KEEP– Keep looking when cooking.
Lone pensioners were found to be involved in over a third of the cooking-related fires across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Karen Farr, HIWFRS’ Head of Prevention, says:
“As a Service we look carefully at the different risks our communities face across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to ensure we play our role in raising awareness of these dangers.
“Nationally each year we know that cooking causes more accidental fires in the home than anything else and sadly our local incident rates mirror the national statistics.
“Through the Recipe for Success COOK campaign we hope to highlight the dangers of unsafe cooking habits to hopefully help prevent unnecessary incidents and fires in the home.”
Visit the Recipe for Success area of the HIWFRS website at https://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/safety/recipe-for-success-cook-campaign/ to download some free recipe cards or for more top tips.
The Service also offers a free online home fire safety check which takes minutes to complete and generates a free personalised fire safety plan for your home at https://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/safety/home-safe-home/homechecker/.
Stay safe and keep your festive fun fire-free with the HIWFRS Christmas checklist – https://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/safety/celebrations-and-events/christmas/.
‘Keep looking while cooking’ ‘Recipe for Success,’ ‘Turn off the Heat Before You Eat’. Wow, brilliant advice. But there were no clever slogans or rhyming couplets about not putting your head in the oven or washing up the stick blender while it’s still plugged in. Or the dangers of stabbing yourself in the eye while putting your fork to your mouth. C’mon Karen. Surely you could have plumbed deeper depths of patronising banality.
Where do the other 50% of fires in the home start.
And don’t forget, cooking from scratch in a real oven, if it’s an annual event, the oven doesn’t go “ping” and turn itself off.
Overner thinks that the HIWFRS is making stupid comments, well let me tell you, as an ex-firefighter, stupid and silly things DO happen which causes accidents and fires. Accident and Emergency are full of these “Accidents”. I know this as my daughter works there. Elderly get forgetful, younger people get distracted. Put it how you want, but just grow up and stop trying to be clever, because you are NOT. Our hospitals and Firefighters see this every day, you do not.