A delicious deep-fried turkey to celebrate the holidays is an absolute must for millions around the country, but fire officials in Miami-Dade are urging caution when cooking birds.
"Thanksgiving leads any other day of the year in number of fires and injuries related to fryer fires," Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lt. Arnold Piedrahita said.
On Wednesday, Piedrahita and his colleagues demonstrated at their training facility how and how not to deep fry a turkey.
“They’re not safe but people are going to use them regardless," he said. “Keep anyone and everyone away from this operation, kids, pets, wife, uncle.”
He said he’s seen what can happen when there’s too much commotion.
"I ran personally into an incident where a gentleman had a hot pot of turkey fryer oil topple on his legs," Piedrahita said. "This gentleman had his buddies talking to him around the fryer and one of his buddies went over to climb the hose that connects the propane tank to the base and he tripped over it toppling the whole set up.”
He also said it's never a good idea to fry turkeys inside.
“If this were to topple inside your home or your garage it will burn your house up," he said of the fryer.
Also if you’re going to deep fry turkeys make sure you’re surrounded by nothing.
“You see we have it on a concrete slab here, but obviously not everyone is going to have access to such an area," he said. "But keep it away from your car, your home and your furniture.”
If there's no such space, there is another option to soak up spills if they happen.
“Kitty litter would work, just have a pad, make a pad, a section of kitty litter and put the base on there," Piedrahita said.
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