Happy Thanksgiving Safety Tips

November 15th, 2019, Minneapolis, Minnesota:

There’s more “stuff” to Thanksgiving that the stuffing inside the turkey. There’s the annual kitchen squabble about cooking the turkey breast side up. The cable goes out during the football game. The 13-year-old refuses to sit at the kids’ table.

Or, the turkey is burned. It happens to the best cooks. Just ask Martha Stewart. She burned a turkey to a blackened crisp. Granted, she was a newlywed and hosting her first family Thanksgiving so give her a break. She told the Daily Mail, “Weary and bleary-eyed at 3 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, I turned on the oven, stuffed the turkey, and struggled to get the enormous bird into the electric oven by 3:45. I went back to sleep only to awake to a house full of black smoke—the turkey was burning! My husband ran downstairs, and I followed, thinking of how embarrassed I would be to serve Thanksgiving dinner without turkey. Indeed, the bird was hopelessly charred! (My fateful mistake? I preheated the oven to 500 degrees, then forgot to turn it down to 325.)”

The Only Fire on Thanksgiving Should Be in the Fireplace

Thanksgiving is the peak day for cooking fires, with three times more than on a typical day. An estimated record of 2,090 fires were reported in 2016, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Unattended cooking accounted for 75 percent of those fires. Minnesota fire marshal Bruce West said 96 Thanksgiving fires were reported in the state in 2017.

To make sure your Thanksgiving is safe, I’ve collected these tips:

• Guests bring a lot of food, some in crock pots or slow cookers. You don’t know what kind of shape those portable appliances are in, so check for frayed cords, and don’t overload the electrical outlets. The same advice applies to office parties.
• Are your oven, stove top and microwave in working order or getting old? Check them out and make necessary repairs before the big day.
• Pay attention to candles and open flames. While they add holiday flare (literally) to the table, it doesn’t take much for an apron, towel, napkin or tablecloth to catch fire.
• Make sure there’s a working fire extinguisher in your kitchen that’s big enough for the space.
• My advice for businesses, day cares, restaurants, senior living and multi-family complexes:
  • Be sure kitchen hood maintenance is up to date.
  • Review your card access platform for holiday hours and parties.
• DO NOT, and I repeat DO NOT use deep fryers to cook the turkey. As the turkey is placed in the hot oil, oil may spill from the fryer onto the burner, causing a fire. Turkey fryers can easily tip over, spilling the hot oil onto anyone nearby. Deep fryer fires cause death, injuries and more than $15 million in property damage every year.
• One more thing, before pre-heating the oven, make sure the hidden stash of candy and cookies or your teenager’s leftover pizza still in its box are out of the oven.

Turkey Trivia

If you need conversation starters at the table to impress your guests (or bore them), try this Thanksgiving trivia.

• Almost 90 percent of American travelers—51 million—will journey 50 miles or more away from home, which makes Thanksgiving the busiest travel holiday of the year. Thirty-eight million travel by car, with another 3.4 million flying. (AAA)
• The average cost to serve 10 people a Thanksgiving feast is $48.90. (American Farm Bureau Federation)
• The favorite side dish is mashed potatoes. The infamous green bean casserole ranks eighth. (Thrillist)
• 43 percent of people eat their Thanksgiving meal between 1-3 p.m. (Statista)
• A Thanksgiving mix-up inspired the first TV dinners. In 1953, a Swanson employee accidentally ordered a colossal shipment of Thanksgiving turkeys (260 tons, to be exact). To get rid of them all, a salesman took inspiration from the prepared foods served on airplanes. He came up with the idea of filling 5,000 aluminum trays with the turkey, with cornbread dressing, gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes to round out the meal. The 98-cent meals became a hit and started a convenience food revolution. (Good Housekeeping)
• Black Friday is the busiest day of the year for plumbers. That’s right, people. Thanks to all that food we gobble up on Thanksgiving and house-guests stressing out the plumbing system, Roto-Rooter reports that kitchen drains, garbage disposals, and yes, toilets, require more attention the day after Thanksgiving than any other day of the year. (You may want to share that fact AFTER the meal.) Remind your well-meaning kitchen helpers not to stuff food down the drain to prevent an expensive plumbing bill.
• And here’s a fact I’m particularly proud of: Minnesota is one of the largest turkey producing state. Out of 240 million turkeys raised in the U.S., 42.5 million are Minnesota grown. (Minnesota Turkey Growers Association)

Our Brothers Fire & Security family wishes you a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving celebration and safe travel. Keep in mind that there are more vehicles on the road, it gets dark early, and the chances are high for unpredictable and inclement weather here in the Midwest. Be prepared with parkas, gloves, boots, snow scrapers, blankets and shovels. And leftovers.

About Brothers Fire & Security

As one of the premier providers of fire and security solutions in the Upper Midwest, Brothers Fire & Security strives to build long-term, value-added relationships. We work with business owners and property management companies, as well as all types of public institutions to solve fire and security needs. By taking advantage of our integrated bundled services, many of our clients find that they can save 25-30% on their safety services, annual inspections and more. From a single location to franchises throughout the region and the country, our integrated approach saves our clients valuable time, money and stress. We provide fire protection systems, security systems, fire sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems, 24-7 monitoring, fire extinguishers, card access and kitchen hoods.