Unattended cooking is the reason for 33% of house fires Are you prepared?

Cooking for someone you love can set your heart and home ablaze.My high school sweetheart (now ex) and I found this out the hard way.We were driving around in his silver Mustang, running errands on a day off from school, when I declared, “I want French fries.” My ex, who loved cooking enough that he’d later graduate from the Culinary Institute of America, offered to make some when we returned to his mom’s house, but I wasn’t interested.

I wanted Burger King French fries.We started to argue.He thought I was being dumb.

“Do you know how many girls would love to have a boyfriend who cooked for them?” I could feel myself losing my appetite.“I think you’re a great cook, but you can’t make fries like BK.

They have a specific taste.”“I bet I can,” he said, and then he drove us back to the house where he could show off his skills.“You don’t even have a deep fryer,” I said to him while he was pulling out cooking tools.

He looked at me with a smirk.“I don’t need one,” and that’s when I watched him pull out a metal colander and place it into the giant pasta pot he had filled with vegetable oil.

I asked, “Is that safe?” He assured me it was.Some time when we weren’t paying attention (and let’s face it, that was pretty soon, because we were teenagers and blasting music and talking instead of watching the stove), the oil became too hot, bubbled over and whoosh! Flames everywhere.I screamed, “Fire, fire!” along with a few expletives.“Grab the pot!” It’s embarrassing to say that at 16 years old, I didn’t know the proper protocol for handling a grease fire.

I’m sure it was covered in some educational program I watched as a kid, but in the moment I went completely blank.Now I know you’re supposed to turn off the burner and smother the flame.Another option would have been to grab something like the Ougist Multipurpose Fire Extinguisher, which can handle Class K fires, as well as Class A (combustibles), B (liquids a...