KItchen Fire Risk

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Frying my supper tonight after reading this thread, I was conscious of the lack of firefighting kit.

If I buy a fire blanket, are they all much of a muchness? If not, how do I tell a good one from a useless one? Just thinking, the screwfix website might be a place to look.

Uncle, go to the Dunelm website and buy a low tog quilt like the rest of us

AiY
Mr helpful

[Dod101]

I must say that I have wondered as well about a suitable fire blanket. Any one though is better than none.

Dod

[mc2fool]

Actually the evidence that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease is dubious to say the least.

The NHS disagrees with you, as does the CDC, as does Heart UK ...

[UncleEbenezer]

Actually the evidence that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease is dubious to say the least.

The NHS disagrees with you, as does the CDC, as does Heart UK ...

I suspect MrF may have in mind studies showing little correlation between how much cholesterol you eat and how much you have in your blood. The latter is produced by the body rather than ingested. Speculating wildly here, but a healthy liver may be key, so advice boils down to maintaining one.

[mc2fool]

Actually the evidence that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease is dubious to say the least.

The NHS disagrees with you, as does the CDC, as does Heart UK ...

I suspect MrF may have in mind studies showing little correlation between how much cholesterol you eat and how much you have in your blood.

That's not what he claimed, but the NHS disagrees with that too.

How to lower your cholesterol

"Try to eat less:
meat pies, sausages and fatty meat
butter, lard and ghee
..."

[MrFoolish]

The NHS disagrees with you, as does the CDC, as does Heart UK ...

I suspect MrF may have in mind studies showing little correlation between how much cholesterol you eat and how much you have in your blood.

That's not what he claimed, but the NHS disagrees with that too.

How to lower your cholesterol

"Try to eat less:
meat pies, sausages and fatty meat
butter, lard and ghee
..."

Most of the NHS nutritional advice is based on decades old observational studies (people filling in surveys) which are notoriously unreliable.

There are plenty of highly qualified individuals (including Michael Mosely who is often on the BBC) that have run their own experiments on nutritional effects, with some interesting results. You'd have to check them out for yourself as there's no way I can do them justice here.

[Dod101]

None of the latest posts have much to do with the topic. Is there a recommended fire blanket? That would have solved my problem I guess in that it would have cut off the oxygen supply for the fire.

Dod

[spasmodicus]

Well sunflower oil is actually sunflower seed oil. It can be pressed from the seeds or chemically extracted using hexane (a component of petrol). I think at least with butter you know what you are getting...

Yes, saturated fats, LDL (bad) cholesterol, and methane induced global warming.

Butter is also totally unsuitable for frying, searing etc as it has a much lower smoke point than most vegetable oils (unless you clarify it), and tastes a lot worse if you do happen to overheat it.

yeah yeah yeah, I know, butter bad / veggie oil good.

But ..... methane from cows /rain forests grubbed up to grow palm oil / cholesterol/ olive tree plantations (monoculture) dying from xylella bacteria / toxic components of canola (rapeseed oil) and allergies from the pollen, not to mention those lovely oily peanuts....... it's quite obvious that we're all doomed whatever we do.

If you like nice crispy skin on your fried sea bass or salmon fillet, stick some butter in the pan with the oil. Butter caramelises easily, so things will crisp up at a much lower temperature than when using veggie oil alone, reducing the risk of fire, not to mention toxins from overheated oil. But yes, the damn smoke alarm will probably go off.
S

[Leothebear]

If you don't have a fire blanket, a wet tea towel can be used to cover the pan and starve the fire of air.
I dealt with a chip pan fire using this method. I also know someone who tried to chuck a burning pan out of the door. He still has the scars 30 years after the most painful event in his life.

[Dod101]

A couple of nights ago I would not have wanted to have to wet a tea towel but I can see the logic. I think a fire blanket it is going to be.

Dod

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I'm leaving this thread now as it's causing great stress. Dod's mention of shopping at 8am in the morning made me feel quite queasy but cooking and fire fighting has tipped the scales for me and I'm now dreading the next twenty years of my life as I slip from middle aged to self confessed shopaholic, firefighter and chef And there was me happily, but probably naively thinking retirement was all about golf, sailing and road trips.

AiY
Dizzy in Yorkshire

[Lanark]

Frying my supper tonight after reading this thread, I was conscious of the lack of firefighting kit.

If I buy a fire blanket, are they all much of a muchness? If not, how do I tell a good one from a useless one? Just thinking, the screwfix website might be a place to look.

You'd think it would be hard to mess up such a simple product, but then: https://www.fireprotectiononline.co.uk/ ... -standard/

use this search term

Code: Select all

fire blanket bs en 1869

[bungeejumper]

Yeah, my dad carried a burning chip pan out of the kitchen and scarred his arm horribly.

I'm not sure there's much to choose between fire blankets, although you might want to check their size. A typical one is a little less than one square metre, which is enough to cover a 60 cm cooker top but not necessarily a 90 cm one. (They're slightly oblong, not square.) They might have incorporated asbestos in the distant past, but these days they're a dense airtight weave of glass fibre, I think.

When it comes to the emergency, you need three things. That you can find it quickly in a smoky room (and without opening cupboards). That it's securely fixed to the wall. And that when you pull the two red cords it all comes out with no arguments.

You'll have to take the third one on trust! Anyway, get one. I'm glad I did.

BJ

[mc2fool]

Is there a recommended fire blanket? That would have solved my problem I guess in that it would have cut off the oxygen supply for the fire.

I got all my fire safety kit (extinguisher, blanket, detectors) from https://www.safelincs.co.uk/. They seemed to get good recommendations and reviews on forums and the like at the time.

[Lanark]

This should be a good option, it meets the latest 2019 regs:
https://www.jaxfirstaid.co.uk/fire-blanket-jacpack/

[mc2fool]

If you like nice crispy skin on your fried sea bass or salmon fillet, stick some butter in the pan with the oil.

Olive oil with a little butter is a good choice for some dishes, but the idea of only using only butter for most things other than lard for frying is just silly ... lard for a stir fry?!? Yuck!

It's horses for courses. Olive oil is appropriate for most Mediterranean dishes, toasted sesame seed oil for stir fries, duck fat for roasting root veggies (yes, yes, I know it should be goose fat, but I save the fat from when I cook duck legs), lard for artery busting stodgy northern English and Scottish dishes, etc, etc.

[tjh290633]

But ..... methane from cows

As cows are vegetarians and eat grass, their meat and milk must be carbon neutral. Of course it takes energy to get it to market, but so does everything else. Just think about it.

TJH

[jfgw]

But ..... methane from cows

As cows are vegetarians and eat grass, their meat and milk must be carbon neutral. Of course it takes energy to get it to market, but so does everything else. Just think about it.

TJH

The problem is that methane is more of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Maybe cows should be fitted with a pilot light.


Julian F. G. W.

[MrFoolish]

If you like nice crispy skin on your fried sea bass or salmon fillet, stick some butter in the pan with the oil.

Olive oil with a little butter is a good choice for some dishes, but the idea of only using only butter for most things other than lard for frying is just silly ... lard for a stir fry?!? Yuck!

It's horses for courses. Olive oil is appropriate for most Mediterranean dishes, toasted sesame seed oil for stir fries, duck fat for roasting root veggies (yes, yes, I know it should be goose fat, but I save the fat from when I cook duck legs), lard for artery busting stodgy northern English and Scottish dishes, etc, etc.

Lard has a pretty neutral taste. There's no reason at all why you can't stir fry with it - and I often do.

My cat will wolf down a bit of tinned tuna in brine. But give it tuna in sunflower oil and it ain't happy. Cats have a 14x better sense of smell than us humans, which should probably tell you something about the composition of sunflower oil.

[servodude]

But ..... methane from cows

As cows are vegetarians and eat grass, their meat and milk must be carbon neutral. Of course it takes energy to get it to market, but so does everything else. Just think about it.

TJH

They eat some grass and some other stuff (hopefully not scrapie infected sheep these days)
But some meat cows are located in ridiculous places causing a huge carbon imbalance
- like the cows that Rio Tinto have only because they need an excuse to justify growing grass in the Pilbara.... which itself is required just because they're mining under the water table and have to keep it out of the natural supply because of the mineral content... so they purify it and run massive pivots to grow crap grass to feed the cattle that they will try to dispose of in a way that doesn't impact the local pastoral market (where the votes are)
- the cows themselves ain't the problem - but it's at best a smokescreen for a lot of environmental damage
- smashing landscape though and the guy who did their soil moisture management was a hoot

-sd