Welcome back, everyone.
Most everyone loves a
grilled burger hot dog,
but you got to be careful when
you're in the process of cooking them.
Paul spoke with an expert
on grilling safety. With
me is Joe Arrington.
He's the public information officer
at the San Antonio Fire Department.
So nobody better to ask about safety.
And you know, even though it's
been so hot, Joe still grilling,
there's nothing beats being
at the grill, right? Right.
But you got to be safe about it,
right? Absolutely.
And you know what, realistically?
Late June, July is when we see the
the biggest number nationwide of
grilling related fires and injuries.
So this is a perfect chance to talk about it.
So when you come outside you
got the grill ready to go.
First things first, make sure it's clean.
You know we may have,
we maybe have not cooked in a while.
Make sure that grease buildup
underneath is cleaned out.
You don't want to have any
potential grease fires.
Get that nice and clean.
Get it opened up.
Make sure it's open before you light it.
If we're using a propane
like this one or a charcoal,
what happens if you,
I can't imagine,
but what happens if you light it?
So if you have it closed,
any kind of residual natural gas leak
or anything you have inside it could
collect in there and cause a flash.
Yeah, yeah,
You want to make sure it's opened up,
you get some fresh air in there.
When you come down here
to turn on the propane,
you see this this hose here that connects it.
A quick, easy thing to do.
Get a little soapy water,
rub up and down that hose.
Check for bubbles.
If you have bubbles,
that means you have a leak in your hose.
Need to replace that hose if it's.
If it's not, open it up,
get it lit up,
make sure it's out away from your home.
You don't want it to be anywhere
near a building or a home where
that fire could potentially spread.
Heat up that you know the
the siding or whatever.
Make sure you don't have any low overhang,
whether it's a roof.
Or a tree,
something else that can be
that is potentially flammable.
So once it's out in a way,
get it open, get it started,
get it clean, get your food on there.
Here's the key things.
Don't leave it alone.
Stay outside with it.
Make
sure you feel. I mean, a lot
of people do for sure they'll leave it alone.
You know, 15 minutes won't, right?
That could be a real problem.
It's a different thing cooking on propane
versus if you're doing some good old
Texas BBQ where you're cooking overnight
or something that's a little different.
That's a good question.
I mean, as opposed to like charcoal,
right? Is it safer?
Charcoal than propane.
So there's a risk involved with both.
Obviously you know charcoal when
you build that up you've got an open
flame just like you do with propane
that the hazards with a charcoal a
lot of times are after you're done.
What we see is people take those coals
out and they put them in a plastic bucket,
set it next to their house and it
melts and catches the house on fire.
So if you are using a charcoal or a wood.
When you do clean it out,
give that that charcoal or those ashes.
Plenty of time to cool down.
When you do, take them out,
put them in a metal container,
keep them away from the house.
Keep them away from a shed or or you know,
an outbuilding.
Whatever it is,
keep them away because it could still be hot.
Always use a metal,
whether it's a an ash bucket
or just a metal bucket.
You put it in plastic and it melts
and catches your deck on fire.
We've seen that a lot, a lot of times.
So and that's no fun at all. No.
Yeah, it's a bad day forever. So.
So propane. Don't leave it alone.
Right. Keep it, keep kids away.
Keep it away from your house or you know,
any kind of structure, you know,
babysit it, Make sure it's you
don't want to burn your food one,
but you really don't want to burn your house.
Yeah.
So that's the double whammy there.
So always keeping, you know,
keep an eye on it.
They keep occupied where they
keep the kids away from it.
It's obviously a burn hazard.
All over.
You don't want that to happen obviously.
But again,
starting out making sure it's clean,
that's where we see a lot of
the fires grease build up.
And one of the way I've seen some some
people get in trouble is if you have
like a foil thing in your and you've got
but you've got a lot of oil right there,
you can, that can really be a problem.
Absolutely. So if you do,
let's say that you know you're cooking
something in foil and you've got you
got some olive oils or whatever inside
that are leaking down and they're flaming up,
Easiest way to handle it.
First and foremost shut the lid.
Kill your fuel source.
Turn off that propane.
If it's charcoal, just keep that lid closed.
Keep a fire extinguisher handy. OK?
You know you want a simple fire extinguisher
you get at any home improvement store.
Yeah, you know, HEB anywhere.
But most the time, if you close
the lid and cut the source source,
it'll eventually burn itself out.
It'll eventually burn.
It'll be contained.
With that lid closed,
you're killing off its fuel source.
Robbing it of oxygen so the fire doesn't
like that it's going to go out now.
If you've got a big grease fire,
then you like we could you need that.
They
need the fire extinction.
Always have that. Right. Well, thank
you so much for the tips.
Really appreciate it.
And happy grilling.
Yeah. Thank you.