I read a question someone asked. He asked if a grill can catch on fire? That made me realize that we all take some kind of risk using a grill.
Especially with propane grills, there is more risk than with a charcoal or pellet grill.
However also a pellet grill can catch on fire.
Reason for me to write about a fire extinguisher for the grill.
Stats on Home Grill Fires
Fire departments get called out to grills that caught fire in more cases than we think.
I did a little research and found that on average there are 10 death, 100 injuries, and $37 million in property loss every year.
That is information from the national fire protection website and you can read it here.
General Safety Tips For Grills
We all know that we have to be careful but we also forget it many times. Here are some tips to use your grill safe and prevent a first.
- Never use a faulty grill
- Set it on a flat surface
- Keep it away from your home or other buildings
- Keep children and pets away
- Don’t move your grill until completely cooled down
These are just a few general tips and in your situation, you might have to take some other actions to make it safe to use your grill.
Fire Extinguishers For The Grils
Besides these tips, it is a good idea to have at least a bucket of water available.
It is even better of course to have a fire extinguisher close to your grill area. That will work better on a gas grill than using a bucket of water.
Grease fires should never be extinguished with water.
A fire extinguisher can be bought for under $20 and if you realize how much damage a grill fire can cause then this is a small investment to prevent our house from burning down.
I found this one on Amazon for sale for $19.98.
Videos Of What Can Go Wrong
I found a video of people who had their grill caught fire and show some tips on how NOT to do certain things.
In case it does happen I also found a video on how to extinguish a fire on a gill that caught on fire.
How to extinguish a fire on a grill
This way of extinguishing a grill fire can be used for charcoal, gas, pellet grills, and other types of outdoor grills.
How do I clean my grill after using a fire extinguisher on it?
Let’s hope you never have to do this but here are some tips I found on how to clean your grill after a fire.
- Let the grill cool all the way
- Scrape of all the grease and dried debris
- scrub inside and outside with water and vinegar.
- Let it dry and season your grill as if it was new.
For this scrubbing, you need to use a mixture of 50/50 water and vinegar. The acidity of the vinegar will remove the sodium bicarbonate that is most of the time used in fire extinguishers
As you can see a fire on a grill can happen pretty easily even when you follow all the precaution steps I wrote about above.
A fire extinguisher is very affordable and it is always safe to have one in your home around the kitchen area.
Just take it outside with you when you fire up the grill.
Eddie van Aken
Eddie van Aken has years of experience in running his full-service restaurant and with this came working with using and dealing with all types of kitchen equipment. With his experience, he is able to find all the pros and cons of grills and add them to the grill reviews he is doing. You can read more on the about page for Eddie van Aken
