Oven Caught on Fire | What to Do?

Accidents never happen with an earlier indication. Accidents can occur anywhere anytime anyway and sometimes it’s pretty hard to deal with. Oven catching fire is one of the common accidents. According to the NFPA, an average of 17,300 oven fires are reported in the United States per year. This represents about 1% of all home fires. Oven fires can cause severe damage to property and injuries to people. But luckily, they’re easy to contain and prevent.

In this post, you’ll get to know about how ovens usually catch fire and what you can do in this case. So, take a few minutes and read the post till the end. 

How Do Ovens Catch Fire?

Some reports suggest that most home fires happen in the kitchen as no other place in a house has to deal with fire on a regular basis. In terms of oven fire, there are some particular reasons that have been found as culprits to make ovens catch fire. Those are –

• Cooking food that contains lots of fat and grease that ultimately splatter and split.
• Using ovens while fat, grease, or food residues are still in it.
• While baking, if the batter overflows and drips outside the dish unwantedly.
• Overburning food sometimes creates smoke which has the potential to catch fire.
• Faulty self-cleaning features are sometimes prone to cause a fire while turned on. 

What to Do When an Oven Caught Fire?

As we’ve already mentioned, oven fires can be easily contained and prevented if you know the basic fire safety measures. If you don’t know, there’s nothing to worry about. Just follow the steps accordingly –

Step 1: DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR! It’s pretty important to leave the oven door closed so that the flame and fire don’t escape and spread in the home.

Step 2: If the oven is still turned on, turn it off ASAP. If it’s dangerous to reach the oven controls, turn off the circuit breaker or unplug the oven. 

Step 3: If the fire is small, you may be able to put it out yourself with a fire extinguisher (if you have one). It’s better to keep a fire extinguisher in the house to prevent any kind of fire accident. 

Step 4: If the fire is large then don’t attempt to get yourself to extinguish the fire. It can be most likely dangerous. In this case, you should evacuate the area immediately and call 911 or the local fire department. 

Step 5: After doing all the needful, when there’s no more danger of fire, even if the oven seems capable of cooking, it’s better to test it by an expert technician as you don’t know the actual severity of the internal damage. If it’s unrepairable, replace it with a new one.

Precautions in Terms of Oven Fire

Prevention is always better than cure. As oven fire is a common accident in households, it’s better to have an idea about its precautions. Here are some precautions you can take to prevent oven fires –

• Never leave food unattended in the oven.
• Clean the oven regularly so that there won’t be any grease accumulation.
• Try not to cook food that has flammable food products using the oven.
• If you see smoke coming from the oven, turn it off immediately and evacuate the area.

Conclusion

That’s all about what you can do when your oven catches on fire. We’ve shared the possible reasons behind this occurrence so that you can understand the precautions better. One thing that’s also very important to keep in mind is that you need to stay calm to determine the severity of the situation. Panicking will only make it difficult to think clearly and take action. Applying the aforementioned steps will definitely help you to stay safe from this accident. Let us know if you find this post useful with your kind feedback.