Game Day or Flame Day

3/2/2021 (Permalink)

It’s Friday night. You have waited the entire week, constantly daydreaming at work about this very moment. Tonight, you and your buddies are going to kick back, make some buffalo wings, and watch the game. You even have a nifty new appliance you’ve been dying to use: a portable deep fryer.

Now you’re no Emeril Lagasse, but you have eyeballs and you can follow directions easily enough. You pull the frozen chicken drumettes out of the bag, reading a recipe you got online. It says to only cook a certain amount of wings at a time. You weigh out the (approximate) correct amount, submerge them in the heated oil, and wait.

While standing around, one of your buddies suggest that you also make mozzarella sticks to accompany the buffalo wings. You have two bottles of ranch dressing that aren’t going to eat themselves.

You weigh out (again, approximately) the same amount of frozen cheese sticks, remove the wings, and drop the cheese sticks into the now much hotter oil. The ice crystals on the mozzarella sticks react with the 400 degree oil, causing oil to bubble and pop violently. Some of the oil gets on a kitchen rag, immediately setting it ablaze. You try to get the dish rag into the sink under water, panicking. The oil continues to pop and spit, setting other nearby soft goods on fire. Before long, the fire is out of control. You try to extinguish it, but the fire has spread too far too fast. You run out of the house to safety and call the fire department.

So much for game night.

While this situation could have been avoided, mistakes happen. When they do, rest assured that SERVPRO of Chino/Chino Hills have you covered. We repair kitchen fires all the time and while they are never fun to deal with, they can be resolved and you and your buddies can always try for game night again. Just be sure to heed those directions next time!