Spring Is in the Air: Safety Tips for Grilling

I’m often reminded by friends and family that the strangest things happen when I’m around and a story comes to mind of an incident that occurred early last spring.

As Chief, I had just finished up my day at work and stopped by the firehouse on the way home to check on the mail and notices left on my desk. It was one of those beautiful bright spring days that bespoke of the summer days just around the corner, the kind of days made for grilling!

Suddenly the alarm crackled to life, “Nassau County Firecom on the air for New Hyde Park with a general alarm, report of a leaking propane barbecue tank with fire. All units to respond." 

I jumped from my desk and as I was getting to my car I thought, wow that’s close to here. Off in the distance I saw a steady plume of black smoke rising from the rear of the homes of the street I was headed to. However in my rush to get there I failed to get the house number from the dispatcher. Now what? I got out of my car near the home that I suspect the fire is behind and I saw this young girl talking on a phone standing behind the storm door of the home. I yell to the young lady, “Is this the house?” and she responds by bobbing her head up and down and pointing to the side of the house (she never put the phone down or opened the door, Ahhh to be young!).

I ran to the rear yard right into the middle of chaos. The man of the house is standing in the middle of the backyard lawn holding grocery bags with one hand and the other waving frantically while yelling loudly, “I go to the store and get us some nice steaks and this is what you do to me, this is what you do to me?”.

The wife replies, “I was just trying to be helpful and warm up the grill for us."

The air horns on the firehouse are sounding as the alarm continues to be dispatched, I can hear the sirens of the responding apparatus in the backround and my portable radio is crackling away. All the while the barbecue is sitting on the patio several feet from the garage totally engulfed in flames shooting ten feet in the air. Time for action!   

 The gentlemen sees me and says, “You see what she does to me?"

My response: "Where's your water hose?"

He said, "What? we don’t have a hose", and at that very moment I spy a sprinkler in the middle of the back lawn, attached to the garden hose. I ran over to it and picked it up and yelled back to him to turn it on. He said, and I kid you not, “I don’t know how to."  I quickly eyed where the hose attached to the house and turned the faucet on and ran back to the sprinkler picked it up and ran to the barbecue with the sprinkler to douse the flames.

The husband said not another word and went into the house. The wife now came over to me and began to complain about her husband!

Propane barbeque fires are very preventable with a little routine maintenance and yet our department responds to several each spring and summer. The cause of most of these types of fires is grease.  Many people fail to clean and empty the grease tray underneath their barbecues and I’ve even had folks admit they didn’t even know it existed. It’s usually a small sliding tray that sits underneath the barbecue collecting bits of burned food below the burners while cooking.  Over time the drippings collect, build up and will ignite if heated to the right temperature. Similar to this instance the homeowners turned the gas up high, lit the grill to warm it up and perhaps burn off the last meal and left it unattended. The heat radiated down to the tray and the fire began. There was a potential to make a dangerous situation worse if fire were to continue to burn it might have burned through and ruptured the tube feeding the propane to the burners.   

Remember -- follow the BBQ manufacturer’s directions for maintenance and every so often remove the tray and clean the accumulated grease. It’ll save you a spoiled lunch or dinner  in the future and a bunch of concerned firemen showing up at your home!