A fire broke out in a primary school in Fengtai District, Beijing, due to a fire in the canteen oil pan! How to eliminate kitchen safety hazards →

According to @Beijing Fengtai Fire Department, at 9:59 on January 3, 2025, the 119 Command Center received an alarm that a fire broke out at No. 16 Cheng'an Road, Chengshousi Street (Chengshousi Primary School). The fire had been extinguished before the fire station arrived at the scene. The burned area was 1 square meter and there were no casualties. It was initially determined that the cause of the fire was due to the cooking oil pan in the cafeteria igniting the flue.

The Fengtai District Fire Rescue Brigade reminds that catering establishments must regularly clean their fume ducts in accordance with relevant regulations, that there must be personnel on duty during open flame cooking, and that in the event of an emergency, call the 119 emergency number in a timely manner.

As a kitchen equipment, the oil stains on the oil fume duct are often easily overlooked. The seemingly inconspicuous oil stains are actually very dangerous. Oil stains are the hidden "time bombs" that threaten kitchen safety. Can high-temperature stir-frying really ignite the oil fume duct?

Let’s do an experiment to see if the stove can ignite the oil fume duct?

The firefighters prepared a stove and a pot filled with cooking oil, and placed a fume pipe on top to simulate the environment of a restaurant kitchen. The fume pipe was also specially treated to accumulate some grease.

After nearly five minutes of high-temperature heating, the oil pan produced a large amount of thick smoke and soon flames appeared. Firefighters wearing professional fire-proof clothing approached and poured a small amount of water into the pan to simulate the explosion environment in a restaurant kitchen.

It can be seen that the flames coming out of the oil pan quickly ignited the oil stains in the oil pan pipe, the oil fume pipe burned violently, and the flames quickly spread and rushed directly to the top of the pipe.

Then, we switched to a household range hood and continued the experiment. The experimenter prepared a range hood that had been used for three or four years.

If you slow down the speed, you can see that when the oil pan caught fire, the fire quickly jumped into the range hood and soon became red. Fortunately, the fire extinguisher was at hand, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous.

What should you do when a frying pan catches fire? In fact, as long as you remember these two steps, you can successfully put out the fire!

Step 1: Stay calm and turn off the heat.

When the oil pan catches fire, stay calm and turn off the fire to avoid further heating and burning.

Step 2: Use the tools at your disposal to put out the fire.

1. If the fire is not big at the beginning, you can use a wet towel, wet rag, etc. to cover the flames directly on the oil pan, so that the fire can be "smothered".

2. When the cooking oil in the pot catches fire due to high temperature, we can quickly cover the pot to extinguish the fire. If there is no pot lid, other things at hand such as a washing basin will do as long as they can cover the pot.

3. Vegetables are also natural "fire extinguishers". Pouring the cut vegetables into the pot quickly can also have a fire extinguishing effect.

4. There is no doubt that a fire extinguisher can put out fire. However, if you use a fire extinguisher to spray the oil pan, the delicious dish will be ruined. However, it can put out the fire quickly.

5. If conditions permit at home, you can prepare a fire blanket. It can be used by men, women, young and old. When a fire occurs, just cover it with the fire blanket to isolate the air. It is safe and effective.

In addition, when frying food, because we use more oil and it is heated for a long time, it is easy to catch fire, so we need to pay special attention to controlling the frying time.

The kitchen is a place where fires are prone to occur. To prevent kitchen fires, you should pay attention to the following precautions:

1. When purchasing and installing exhaust ducts, pay attention to quality and installation specifications to avoid causing trouble in use and cleaning and posing a fire hazard.

2. Catering establishments should increase fire safety publicity and training for their employees, provide them with regular or irregular training to help them master the knowledge and methods of preventing and extinguishing initial fires in oil flues, and formulate corresponding fire safety management systems.

3. Restaurants, hotels and other commercial places should have their fume ducts cleaned by professional companies every two months. Range hoods in residents' homes should also be cleaned regularly to prevent oil and dirt from clogging the ducts and causing fire accidents.

4. Kitchen staff must ensure that fires are extinguished when leaving the kitchen. They must also try to control the height of flames when cooking to prevent the flames from being too high and igniting the grease in the fume duct. Fire extinguishers and other fire-fighting equipment should be placed in the kitchen to deal with accidents.

5. The installation of the oil fume duct must be carried out by professionals, and it should be avoided to fix the oil fume duct on combustible materials such as wooden boards.

If the hidden safety hazards lurking in the kitchen are not properly prevented, it can easily cause a fire with disastrous consequences!

Learn some tips on preventing kitchen safety hazards together

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Source: @Beijing Fengtai Fire, WeChat official account of the Ministry of Emergency Management of the People's Republic of China, Jiangxi Fire, Shiyan Fire

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