Did you know…..Firefighters are terrible unannounced house guests. We don’t bring a pie or favorite beverage. We really don’t mind coming to your house if you need us, but think about it. While we are professional and courteous, we make a lot of fuss getting to your house. The apparatus are big, noisy and hard to miss when we take up the street when stopped in front of your house. And no, we won’t move them until we are done ”visiting” you.
Your firefighters wear 40-55 pounds of bulky, heavy clothing and will carry all sorts of odd-looking equipment through your home to ensure we have the proper tools to extinguish a fire or mitigate a smoke condition. We will “invite” you to leave your house if you haven’t done so already and won’t let you back in until we are finished. No, we will not take off our boots before walking across your light-colored carpet, ….and yes, we have been asked to do this.
So in order to reduce the chances of having the Fire Department as an unexpected guests to your Thanksgiving dinner we offer the following tips:
Test your smoke alarms to make sure the work. Folks sometimes forget about the food that is being cooked until it’s too late. Smoke alarms do not make good cooking timers, but they might just save your kitchen. Use a soft brush and vacuum around the smoke alarms in your home. A clean smoke alarm is less likely to activate because of a little steam or puff of smoke.
Check your oven. If its dirty use the self-clean feature this weekend before cooking the turkey. If its REALLY dirty give it a good pre-clean wipe down before using the self-cleaning cycle, it won’t smoke as much. Yes, we will come to your house to blow the smoke out if it gets really smoky.
Keep combustibles away from all cooking surfaces including your stove and oven when you start cooking.
Establish a safety zone in your cooking area to keep children and non-chef partners away and safe. The Emergency Room doesn’t want to meet you over the holiday either. Especially this year!
DO NOT USE a “turkey fryer” in your house, loft, basement, breezeway, screened in porch, or in the garage. NEVER cook a frozen or partially frozen turkey in one of these fryers. Ice crystals can cause the extremely hot oil to splatter, which can burn you and will cause a rather spectacular fire if it ignites. This All may seem counterintuitive I know, but people do silly stuff sometimes, especially during the holiday season.
Remember COVID is a really nasty, deadly virus. It does care about you, your loved ones or the Season. Protect yourselves! Wear your masks even at your smaller family gatherings. Its easier to breath through your mask rather than a tube connected to a machine! Spread out at dinner time, its about being with your immediate family, it’s not about sitting at the same table. And Mom was right, was your hands …A lot! We do all of these precautions here in your two Fire Stations. We will all get through this together! We need you to do your part.
Have a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving.
If you think you have an emergency…you do. Please call 911 immediately. We have never seen anyone die of embarrassment. Unfortunately, we have seen too many die because no one called 911 until it was too late.