Small cooking fire leads to valuable lesson

Extinguishers are only for small fires.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- My cheese sauce was looking good.
It was at a rolling boil, and I stirred it, slowly, because I'd filled the sauce pan too full.
Some of it cascaded down the sides of the pan anyway.
Oh what a mess, I thought. But I was in a hurry. My mother-in-law and I were standing at my stove preparing food for a party that was to start in a few hours.
I removed my sauce after it was done, and I didn't clean the burner. I filled a pot full of water for pasta, turned the burner back on and plunked the pot down over the cheese-sauce mess, figuring I'd have a cleaning job on my hands when I finally got around to it.
Several minutes later, something didn't seem right with the pot of water. It was making weird, crackly popping noises. Puzzled, I picked it up -- and discovered I was going to have a harder job with that burner than I'd thought.
Flames on my stovetop. Not good. It's electric.
A grease fire had started in the cheese-and-butter pools I'd left in the splash ring. I immediately turned the burner off, but it made no difference.
Did the wrong thing
I turned to my mother-in-law for inspiration. "Let's blow on it," she said.
So the two of us hunched over the flames and blew, but that didn't work either. They would die down for a second only to come back even stronger, like some big trick birthday candle.
"We're just giving it oxygen," she finally said, and we stopped. I think we both knew beforehand that would happen, but I guess panic can make normally rational people do some not-so-rational things.
I went to the sink and doused a dish towel. Part of me knew I'd hatched a bad plan because I'd heard, as most people likely have, that water doesn't work on a grease fire. But it felt -- comfortable, putting water on the flames, and I threw the wet towel over the burner.
My comfort was short-lived. When I removed the towel, the flames climbed even higher toward my range hood.
"Do something!" I begged my mother-in-law.
"Call 911 -- I don't know what to do," she said, and I could tell she thought I'd lost my mind.
Salt or flour
She was correct. My mind was off and running. I thought about salt, which I'd heard will smother a grease fire. I thought about flour, which I figured would smother it, but might also explode. I thought at last about my fire extinguisher, which was sitting in the corner where our kitchen meets our dining room, and I almost went to get it.
But the thought of using it was intimidating. In all the years it had sat there collecting dust, I had never given it much thought, let alone bothered to read the directions on how to use it.
What if I did something wrong and it didn't work? Would I be reading directions while my house burned down?
Salt killed it
As I waffled over what to do, my mother-in-law found her wits and poured salt over the fire. Disaster averted. I'm sure I would have tried that next.
Yes, confirmed Don Hutchison, Cardinal Joint Fire District's deputy chief. Salt is ideal to use on a grease fire. Flour too, as long as it's poured directly onto the flames. Airborne flour, though, can explode.
Baking soda works, he said. So will a pot lid.
Your household fire extinguisher is filled with fine powder designed to smother even a grease fire. It's easy to use, and there's no reason to be intimidated by it. Even so, he said, that's a fairly common reaction.
"So many people have fire extinguishers and never think how to use them," Hutchison said.
Think about it
During the holiday season, when people are doing a lot more cooking, using their fireplaces, burning candles and possibly overloading their electrical circuits with decorative lights, it could pay off big to give that fire extinguisher some thought.
It starts with knowing where it is.
Hutchison gives classes to groups and businesses on how to use extinguishers.
At home, he said, an extinguisher should be located on a way out of the house because you don't want your escape route blocked if the fire gets too big to fight.
Extinguishers are for small fires. If your fire is in a waste basket or on top of the stove, you should be OK. If it's spread beyond its immediate area, it's out of your control.
"If it's going up the side of the wall, get out," Hutchison said.
Remember PASS
When you're about to use your extinguisher, remember the acronym PASS, he said.
"Pull the pin, aim the nozzle, squeeze the handle, then sweep," he said.
You've got to sweep back and forth, aiming at the base of the fire, he said. If the fire is below you, stand back 6 to 8 feet and aim on a 45-degree angle. Standing over it and spraying down will force the flames out to the sides, and they might catch other parts of the room on fire.
There are different sizes of extinguishers, and people usually have the smallest ones in their homes. They have enough spray for about 10 to 15 seconds, which should be long enough to put out a small fire, he said.
Hutchison also believes you should call 911, even if you think the fire is out.
You might cringe at the thought of the ladder trucks coming out because your cheese sauce boiled over. But it's better to be safe, he said, than to find out the fire caught somewhere, was still smoldering, and it's too late to save your house.
starmack@vindy.com