The holiday season brings a number of hazards that increase home fire risks and damage to essential infrastructure.
This year, Anchorage officials are relaying to residents some basic steps they can take to avoid burning their property or fouling their plumbing.
One message they want to drive home: If you’re going to deep fry a turkey, be sure not to ignite a gigantic grease fire.
“You want to make sure your turkey is completely thawed,” said Lexi Trainer, public information officer for the Anchorage Fire Department.
Trainer stood before the singed remains of a plump turkey carcass that a few minutes prior had been engulfed in flames. In an effort to spread the word about common seasonal cooking dangers, a firefighter used a long metal rod to dunk a partially frozen turkey into a pot of very hot peanut oil outside AFD’s training facility. The cooking station was promptly enveloped in a tall, hissing plume of fire.
“You do not want your oil to be boiling,” Trainer said.
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Cooking is the No. 1 cause of home fires, according to a 2023 report from the National Fire Protection Association, and Thanksgiving sees by far the largest number of calls for help to fire departments around the country, followed by Christmas. Social media and local news coverage are filled with videos of turkeys exploding in fryers, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
The Anchorage Fire Department does regularly respond to grease fires, though not exclusively caused by turkeys. Trainer advised that if you must deep fry a large bird this Thanksgiving, ensure it is fully thawed, patted dry, and submerged in oil that is not overly hot in a pot that is not overly filled. Do so outdoors away from flammable materials. And keep a fire extinguisher close at hand. Never use water to put out a grease fire.
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The Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility also sees problems around the Thanksgiving holiday — chiefly, large amounts of grease and oil poured down sink drains that end up clogging pipes.
“In the plumbing world they call (this) Friday ‘brown Friday’ as opposed to Black Friday,” said Sandy Baker, who coordinates public outreach for AWWU. “Because nationwide there are so many backups that tend to happen.”
Baker had an array of common foodstuff set out on a folding table to illustrate normal kitchen staples that should not end up in the drain: bacon fat, salad dressing, mayonnaise, butter, a Mason jar filled with drippings from one single 21-pound turkey. Many foodstuffs that might seem innocuously viscous and liquid, she said, can congeal and gunk up residential plumbing, eventually plugging it entirely and wreaking havoc on pipes.
“We’re just trying to draw attention to keeping fats, oils and greases out of the drains for everybody’s sake. The less we have to do maintenance on the lines, the better for everybody, because that affects your rates,” Baker said.
Baker advises that a better way to dispose of such materials is to let them cool, then put it in a sealed container like a tin can or mix it with an absorbent medium such as sawdust or kitty litter before tossing it in the garbage.
“Cool it, can it, trash it,” she said.
Residents should also be mindful of how they position holiday decorations, said Anchorage Fire Marshal Brian Dean. It’s best not to put electrical light displays directly on top of heating sources like radiators. If you have a live tree, he added, it must be regularly watered to keep from drying out into tinder. Examine strings of festive lights for fraying wires.
And with colder weather, Dean said, people should avoid relying on alternative heating sources like ovens or hot plates to heat their homes. Space heaters can provide a boost of warmth, but he cautioned they should be plugged directly into outlets, and kept 3 or more feet away from combustible materials like paper or bedding.