Document Actions
Wednesday: The turkey
posted at 2008-11-19 19:19 | Last modified 2008-11-19 22:56
Sometimes the only thing worse than a story that blows up in your face is one that doesn’t. At least when you’re talking turkey.
Yesterday, the Cary Fire Department held its annual Holiday Hazards event, featuring flaming Christmas trees and exploding turkeys. No, I’m not making fun of it – watching a turkey deep-fryer turn into an enormous fireball (last year’s story) is something you don’t forget. Helping people to avoid that is a worthwhile endeavor.
But sometimes Mother Nature just won’t cooperate.
It was flurrying hard and brutally cold yesterday behind Cary Fire Station 1, where three shivering reporters gathered around a sacrificial Christmas tree waiting on the driveway. A turkey deep-fryer bubbled off to the side. The firemen were ready with their hoses.
Then a call came in, sending almost all the firemen to the truck and out of the station. As the sirens faded, Fire Education Specialist Kathy Ellis borrowed some protective gear and found a volunteer to man the hose. Then she tried to set the tree on fire.
This turned out to be far more difficult than you'd expect. The tree hadn’t been watered for two weeks, so it was definitely flammable. But Ellis was up against a stiff 25 mph wind, a snow shower, and a lighter that wasn’t working.
Eventually, a page of newsprint was rounded up to help hold a flame, and that worked much better. The tree transformed into a torch – a roaring, searing fire that took one minute (I timed it) to turn a six-foot pine into a smoking skeleton. Pretty impressive.
Moral: Water your tree, people. A lot.
Part 2: the Turkey
A lot of turkey-fryer fires happen because too much oil gets too hot. (The recommended temperature is usually 350-375, but many older fryers don’t have thermostats.) For the demo, Ellis and her crew were aiming to heat the oil to about 500 degrees, which made for a really effective fireball last year.
But this year, it was so cold and windy that the oil wouldn’t get hotter than 450 degrees. Eyeing the frostbitten reporters, Ellis opted to go ahead anyway.
No dice. Even though the fryer was overfilled and the bird was still partially frozen, the darned thing refused to blow up. It just overflowed, flamed a little, and settled down. A fireman (back by this time) settled a lid on the fryer with an air of resignation, nodding when a reporter asked whether the turkey might be salvageable for the station's dinner.
Don’t count on cold weather to save you. Some safety tips:
- Pre-measure the oil level using your turkey and water (the bird displaces the liquid). Then dry the fryer completely.
- Make sure the oil isn’t hotter than it’s supposed to be.
- Thaw and dry the bird completely. Water plus boiling oil equals 911 call.
- Do NOT set your fryer on a flammable surface, especially a deck (flaming oil could go straight down into all those dead leaves trapped under it) or under an overhang or roof of any kind. It’s bad enough to lose your turkey dinner to a fryer mishap - don’t lose your house, too (and yes, it happens).
- Don’t ever leave the fryer unattended, and keep kids and pets well away from it. The noise and smell is pretty much guaranteed to attract curious members of both groups. And remember that even after you’ve turned off the fryer, the oil stays hot for a long time.
Those tips are courtesy of Education Specialist Kathy Ellis, who joked to the firemen, “Hey, at least you don’t need to worry about me starting a fire.”
Ellis wins the “PR Pro of the Day” award for undaunted determination and a great sense of humor in the face of recalcitrant poultry and unseasonable weather. The next time you think flacks have it easy, think again.
Comments? Drop me a line.
