You know something is dangerous if Captain Kirk himself is wary.
In advance of Thanksgiving Day, William Shatner has released several videos detailing the dangers of deep fried turkey.
“Tastes great,” Shatner tells his audience. “But it’s so dangerous, you can’t even imagine. I’ve burned byself. I’ve almost burned my house down.”
Shatner knows, apparently, that when it comes to cooking fires, no single day of the year beats Thanksgiving.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, there are three times as many cooking fires on Thanksgiving Day than on an average day.
In Maine, Thanksgiving Day 2013 was the leading date for home cooking fires with 1,550, according to the State Fire Marshal’s Office. That’s 230% above the average number of fires per day.
The main culprit? It’s not faulty equipment or turkeys that randomly explode. Fire officials say unattended cooking is by far the primary factor in Thanksgiving Day blazes.
Keep your eyes on the bird and don’t turn your back on the yams, in other words.
Locally, in Lewiston and Auburn, fire officials acknowledge that the number of kitchen fires tends to spike on Thanksgiving Day, although the area seems to have been spared major fires on the holiday. The majority of calls involve burned food and kitchens full of smoke, according to Lewiston Fire Inspector Paul Oullette.
Down the road, in Bath, a fire captains home was heavily damaged last Thanksgiving in a fire that began just as the family was finishing up their dinner. Ironically, the blaze was not blamed on cooking at all – it appeared to have started in the garage, fire officials said. Likewise, on Thanksgiving Day in 2012, fire that burned a Dresden home flat was blamed on a woodstove.
How prevalent are kitchen fires on Thanksgiving? Prevalent enough that an insurance company put together a Top Ten list of states most affected by such fires. Maine isn’t even on the list. In the number one slot is New York, followed by Georgia and Pennsylvania.
The Lewiston Fire Department offers the following tips for general holiday cooking. They also offer tips for William Shatner and others who might be interested in deep-frying their Thanksgiving bird.
• Stay in the kitchen when you are cooking—frying, broiling, or boiling—at high temperatures.
• Make your cooking area safe. Move things that can burn away from the stove. Turn pot handles toward the back so they can’t be bumped.
• Watch what you’re cooking. Use a timer when roasting a turkey or baking.
• Be prepared. Keep a large pan lid or baking sheet handy in case you need to smother a pan fire.
• Stay awake and alert while you’re cooking. If you see smoke or the grease starts to boil in your pan, turn the burner off.
• Prevent burns. Wear short sleeves when you cook, or roll them up. Don’t lean over the burner. Use potholders and oven mitts to handle hot cookware.
Tips for frying a turkey:
• Turkey fryers can easily tip over, spilling hot cooking oil over a large area.
• An overfilled cooking pot will cause cooking oil to spill when the turkey is put in, and a partially frozen turkey will cause cooking oil to splatter when put in the pot.
• Even a small amount of cooking oil spilling on a hot burner can cause a large fire.
• Without thermostat controls, deep fryers can overheat oil to the point of starting a fire.
• The sides of the cooking pot, lid, and pot handles can get dangerously hot.
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