Chip Pan Fires

[buggi]

I think more people die in fires caused by falling asleep with a cigarette. But they are smouldering fires, not quite as dramatic as a chip pan flash.

chip pan fires, if caught straight away are actually very easy to deal with as long as you don't panic. Fires need 3 things to survive. fuel, heat and oxygen. remove just one of these things and the fire dies.

turn off the heat. wet and wring out a tea towel, place tea towel over top of chip pan to smother flames... orplace a plastic tray on the chip pan as the heat melts the plastic and "seals" the chip pan, thus no oxygen can get in.

If you don't catch it straight away, your cupboards catch fire and then the fire takes hold like most normal fires, even at this stage the fire service could probably save the rest of your house. you get the "flash" when you chuck a cup of water on it... which people do when they panic, and then your whole kitchen goes "Wooooooooooooooooooooofffff" and you most probably die, and by the time the fire service get there your whole frickin house is on fire.

so thus you should not cook chips when in danger of falling asleep and also don't panic.

another bad thing to do is run outside with the chip pan and throw it. that doesn't work and will probably singe your eyebrows off

 

[Tyke]

We had a chip pan fire a few days before Christmas once, when I was a kid. Many a happy hour was spent up a ladder trying to scrub the ceiling clean (wee took it in 'shifts', and repainted before Christmas too).
Chez Fnaar, we don#t have a chip pan... never have, in 23 yrs together.

You are lucky if you could still paint many fires leave you homeless.

 

[Accy cyclist]

My fear of chip pans stemmed from my childhood when my mum shrieked at me if i went near the chip pan. In my younger years i'd come back from a night out and do many stupid things like peeing in the fridge or putting a tin of beans in the microwave but no matter how sozzled i was that chip pan was to be avoided!
A mate of mine died when he did the dreaded water on boiling oil panic thing after he fell asleep then woke up to find the kitchen burning.

 

[ComedyPilot]

I wonder if @vernon is open to marriage proposals....?

 

[vernon]

I wonder if @vernon is open to marriage proposals....?

Join the queue.

 

[asterix]

My fear of chip pans stemmed from my childhood when my mum shrieked at me if i went near the chip pan. In my younger years i'd come back from a night out and do many stupid things like peeing in the fridge or putting a tin of beans in the microwave but no matter how sozzled i was that chip pan was to be avoided!
A mate of mine died when he did the dreaded water on boiling oil panic thing after he fell asleep then woke up to find the kitchen burning.

I must lead a sheltered life as I have never met anyone who died in a chip pan fire.

My mother used to make chips rarely. She treated the pan with the caution usually reserved for unexploded bombs. Apparently you test the temperature of the oil by dropping a chip in and seeing if it floats unfortunately I can't remember whether the temperature is right when it floats or right when it doesn't.

 

[Fnaar]

You are lucky if you could still paint many fires leave you homeless.

Aye, my mum (who I guess started it) also bravely did the wet tea-towel extinguishing thing when we noticed it. By which time it had made a lot of smoke.

 

[gbb]

I must lead a sheltered life as I have never met anyone who died in a chip pan fire.

My mother used to make chips rarely. She treated the pan with the caution usually reserved for unexploded bombs. Apparently you test the temperature of the oil by dropping a chip in and seeing if it floats unfortunately I can't remember whether the temperature is right when it floats or right when it doesn't.

I always work by the rule when your chips float, they're cooked. They're submerged until then.
Placing the chips in fat at the correct'ish temperature is a skill my wife hasnt ever mastered...she just dunks them in, occasionally when the fat is nowhere near hot enough, reult...soggy chips.

 

[Lance Jack]

I live in the middle of six terraced houses. My wife and I came home last year to see smoke coming out of the garden of the end house. My wife got out and I parked the car, the next thing is my wife shouting "Lance, their kitchen is on fire!" I ran to their gate, which was locked, and half jumped the six foot wall. It was twilight and all I could see was the glow and flickering of a fire through their window. The owner, a woman in her 70's, was coming out the house, I shouted "Do you want a hand?", a bit lame but it's the first thing I could think of. She let me in and I went in the kitchen, the smoke was really bad and there was two smoke alarms, downstairs and upstairs, going off, you could see the fire on top of the double cooker, a chip pan. I grabbed it and took it outside and went back in because the fire had caught the cooker hood which had collapsed onto the cooker, I got wet tea towels and smothered the fire. The owner went back to my house with my wife and I stayed and opened a few windows and secured the place.
She had told us she had started the chips going and then got distracted by the television in the other room. The cooked hood extractor fan was on so when the chips caught fire the fan took the smoke outside stopping the smoke alarm going off straight away. It was only as the fire had reached a point that the fan caught fire she realised what was happening.
I look back on that and think what may have been. What if I had dropped the pan? It was hot and I was minus the hairs on my arm for a while and I was coughing for a couple of hours. What if I had turned up a minute later? I think we where all lucky.

 

[Brains]

I must lead a sheltered life as I have never met anyone who died in a chip pan fire.

You are St Peter and I claim my £5

 

[Tyke]

I look back on that and think what may have been. What if I had dropped the pan? It was hot and I was minus the hairs on my arm for a while and I was coughing for a couple of hours. What if I had turned up a minute later? I think we where all lucky.

If You had dropped the pan you would have set the whole kitchen alight and very likely yourself with it. You should never move a burning chip pan. Put it out where it is if it is safe to do so or call the fire brigade.

 

[Linford]

Myself and a mate followed some fire engines and a smoke trail one saturday afternoon across the burb I lived in when I was about 12 as you do (on my Grifter). We got to a Bungalow and the fire crew were busy and we hung around for a bit. Eventually, the crew wound every thing down, and we managed to look in the kitchen where the chip pan fire had gone off and the whole place was as black as pitch....quite impressive, quite scary.

 

[vernon]

I always work by the rule when your chips float, they're cooked. They're submerged until then.
Placing the chips in fat at the correct'ish temperature is a skill my wife hasnt ever mastered...she just dunks them in, occasionally when the fat is nowhere near hot enough, reult...soggy chips.

Recovery technique - crank up the heat and monitor closely.

Throwing in a solitary chip and observing its behaviour gives adequate indication of the suitability of the temperature of the oil/lard/dripping.

Just occasionally I get it wrong and the water boils vigorously with the potential of the oil boiling over and onto the hob. Counter measures are counter intuitive. Bang more chips in immediately and this lowers the temperature of the oil far more quickly than turning the heat down.

 

[Maverick Goose]

[QUOTE 2821954, member: 259"]Ignore all previous advice and double cook in beef dripping. [/quote]
Heston recommends beef dripping

 

[vernon]

Heston recommends beef dripping

So you'd take advice from someone who serves snail porridge?