Grilling Safety Tips

5/30/2018 (Permalink)

Grill Safety to consider when breaking out your inner backyard culinary skills.

June and July are peak months for summer grilling fires in Kansas City. The Memorial Day weekend opened up grilling season so if you haven't already, it’s time to dust off the grills and let the inner backyard culinary skills to work. As exciting as it is to break out the grill for the official start of the summer season right, we have to always consider the safety that needs to be taken when preparing to light up the grill.

NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) says that the U.S. fire department responded to an average of 8,900 home fire that involved the use of grills, hibachis, or barbecues per year.  These 8,900 fires caused annual averages of 10 civilian deaths, 160 injuries, and $118 million in direct property damage. Almost all the losses resulted from structure fires. The leading causes of grill fires were a failure to properly cleaning of the grill, placement of the grill because it was placed to close to a structure and leaving the grill unattended. Five out of six (83%) of grills involved in home fires were fueled by gas while 13% used other sources of fuel.