Cooking fires are twice as likely to happen on Thanksgiving as any other day of the year. Here are some tips to keep your kitchen safe—on Thanksgiving and every other day.

The people at Underwriters Laboratories have the coolest jobs. They get to break things, start fires and make things blow up, all in the name of safety.

Underwriters Laboratories is an independent product safety certification organization that has been testing products and writing standards for safety for more than a century. Each year, the Northbrook, Illinois-based UL evaluates more than 19,000 types of products, components, materials and systems. The UL Mark signifies that a product has undergone rigorous testing to assure that it meets UL’s standards for safety. You’ll find the UL Mark on some 72,000 manufacturers’ products in 98 countries.

Where you won’t find the UL Mark is on one single turkey fryer. Not one. All are deemed far too unsafe. Which leads me to safety tip number one:

1. Don’t deep fry your turkey. Seriously. The video above shows clearly all the ways this novel [read idiotically dangerous] approach to preparing your turkey can go wrong. And this is under laboratory conditions that don’t involve beer or wanting to hurry back to televised football.

But turkey fryers aren’t the only source of accidents. According to UL, “nearly 1,450 residential structure fires Continue reading “If you can’t stand the heat, take care in the kitchen: 10 Thanksgiving fire safety tips” →