Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Urges Safety over Holiday

Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John F. King is urging Georgians to use caution while cooking this holiday season.

Commissioner King tells WNEG News just this year nine Georgians have died in cooking-related fires.

He said from 2014-2018, there were 16,371 cooking- related fires in Georgia.

That’s why King is urging people take extra precautions this week when cooking that Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

“The challenge here is that people who don’t typically cook. They want to try something new. They don’t read the instructions, the family m embers start arriving and they get in a panic to get everything done quickly so they take shortcuts. And these shortcuts can be quite deadly,” King explained.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires, followed by Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.

Commissioner King suggests the following cooking safety tips to ensure you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season:

First, while deep frying a turkey has become a popular cooking method, he says never put a frozen turkey into a hot deep fryer.

“When the cold frozen turkey hits the hot boiling oil it can have an explosive reaction, which is very dangerous,” he said.

Also, remember to set your timer and keep your cooking area free of potholders, towels, and other combustibles.

And remember to make sure you have enough smoke alarms in your home.

“We go back to having a functioning smoke detector in the home,” King said. “It’s astounding the number of deaths we’ve had in the State of Georgia. And when our investigators go in to work these fires, we find there was no working smoke detector. So, it’s tremendous the amount of human losses when it could be so easily prevented.”

So far in 2019, 66 Georgians have died in 55 residential fires.  In 50 of those 55 fires, there were no working smoke alarms present.

There have been 79 total deaths in Georgia fires this year.