We had a bit of a scare today. I was just starting to do lunch, I'd put a pan on the oven, with only about a tablespoon of oil in, to heat up, before making some pasta sauce. Dropped my concentration for a minute & let the oil get a bit hotter than I'd like. It was smoking slightly, but nothing much, so I thought. Opened the pack of frozen quorn, and shook the first couple of chunks in. Sizzle. Hiss. Woosh!
Honestly, I never ever realised that pan fires can start with such a small amount of oil. I always thought of it as being chip pans, full of oil, but seemingly not. Fortunately, as there was only a small amount of oil, the flames were only small, and I was able to use the wet tea-towel approach to putting it out. Turned off the gas first, wet tea towel over the pan, away from me, left it for a couple of minutes, then put the whole thing outside to cool down safely. Textbook manoeuvre.
The official advice from the Fire Service these days is "Get Out, Get The Fire Brigade Out & Stay Out", but as it was such a small thing, I felt I was safe to deal with it. Remarkably calm afterwards, I was expecting the adrenalin to be flowing, but not a dickybird.
So, lesson to be learned. If it can happen to me, with a tiny amount of oil, it can happen to anyone. Please watch the video below, to see what to do, and what not to do. And if you're in any doubt as to whether you can safely deal with a fire (pan, or otherwise), Get out & leave it to the experts. The fire service are trained, it's their job.
Glad it wasn't worse, they can be so scary. I managed to nearly set fire to my microwave today, making popcorn (I misread the instructions and left it in twice as long; it came out black and smoking!)
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