Year after year, too many homes are damaged and residents injured as a result of one of Marylanders most essential and pleasurable activities: Cooking.

The pursuit of a home-cooked meal remains a leading cause of home fires in Maryland and nationwide. Cooking fires remain one of the most prominent home fire issues we face. All of us must remain vigilant in our efforts to practice fire safe behavior to protect ourselves, families and friends from the devastating effects of fire.

Distractions and forgetfulness are the key ingredients to cooking fires in the home. In most cases, the cook goes to another room because of monitoring children, phone calls, texting, social media activities, visitors, television or any other number of interruptions, and forgets about the food on the stove or in the oven. This then leads to potential injuries from fighting a cooking fire, the destruction of the kitchen area or even the loss of your home.

If the fire is small and contained to the cookware; place a lid on it to smother the fire, turn off the heat source and allow it to cool completely before trying to remove it. Never use water on a grease fire, water can cause the fire to spread. If the fire is in the oven or other self contained appliance; close the door, turn off the heat source and allow it to cool prior to removal.

When in doubt, have everyone leave the house immediately, close the door to the house, and then call 911.

The MAVFC and the Office of the State Fire Marshal offers these ‘safety recipes’ during cooking:

• Never leave cooking food unattended.
• Roll up sleeves and control loose clothing. Loose clothing can catch on fire and/or possibly cause cookware to tip over.
• Establish a three foot, “no kids and no pets zone” around the stove.
• Keep handles turned inward to help prevent spills.
• Always use dry oven mitts or potholders. The heat from hot cookware could turn trapped moisture into steam and cause scald burns.
• Keep potholders, towels, food packaging and other clutter off of the stovetop.
• Keep the cooking equipment clean; built up grease, food crumbs and prior spills can catch on fire.
• Do not place cookies or candy over the stove area. This will reduce the attraction kids may have for climbing over cooking equipment.
• If you experience a power outage, make sure to turn off electric burners to avoid having them turned on unexpectedly when service is returned to the home.

Two additional and necessary steps in fire safety when protecting your family is to ensure your home is equipped with working smoke alarms, and practice your home escape plan in the event a fire occurs in your home. When preparing every meal, make sure you use these ‘recipes for safe cooking’ to avoid a potential tragedy.