It’s that time of year where residents are preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday with all the fixings and some residents may decide to deep fry their turkey this year. Price City Fire Chief Fitzgerald Peterson wants to make sure that any cooks that choose to deep fry their turkey will take safety precautions when doing so.
“The big thing that people need to remind themselves is that you don’t want to fry a frozen turkey, even a partially frozen turkey. There’s no real way, unless your local, to buy a turkey unless its frozen, so that’s the challenge, you have to be aware it takes days to thaw out. So if you try to submerge a frozen turkey, you’re going to get boil over, and you’re going to start a fire. So that’s number one,” stated Chief Peterson. It’s the ice on or in the turkey that will react to the hot oil and burner which could cause a disaster. It is not a bad idea to have a dry chemical fire extinguisher nearby because a water source will not dowse the fire.
“The next problem is people that overfill the oil. If you’re not prepared for that, that also could go over, even if it’s not boiling because it was frozen. So submerging the turkey in water, so you know the level before you put in oil, would give you an indication of where to put your oil level before you submerge the turkey, and then again, you have to dry that turkey,” said Chief Peterson. Also remember that cooking oil that is heated beyond its smoke point can catch fire, if you notice the oil is smoking, turn the fryer off. It’s not a bad idea to turn the burner off while submerging the turkey to prevent a possible fire from a overfill, because you can always relight the burner after wards safely, if you don’t have an overfill.
Its very important to know where you plan on cooking your turkey, it should be an area on level ground and well ventilated. “Fires that have happened nationally are those that do it on a deck, too close to the home, in a garage, in the building, in the home – please don’t do that. So we’re advocating that you find a nice piece of concrete, its well ventilated, it’s protected from both, you have to worry about children, you have to worry about pets. You have to worry about anything, even another car, so you have to protect that spot but just keep it 25 feet away from a structure,” explained Chief Peterson. Keep bystanders to a minimum when deep frying a turkey and NEVER leave the fryer unattended.
A couple of years ago, the Fire Department shared on their social media page a video of them deep frying a frozen turkey and what can happen when you do so. They plan on sharing the video again this year. All members of the Price City Fire Department would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday.