From Derrick Riches,
Your Guide to Barbecues & Grilling.
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The secret of flare-ups is to control them not fear them.

A. First of all it's important that you understand that flare-ups are not as big a problem as you might think. Controlled flare-ups are okay, it's when the fire gets out of control that you have a problem. There are several ways to deal with flare-ups and a spray bottle full of water isn't the best way.

First of all you need to plan on flare-ups and prepare for them. The first step is to reduce the risk of a flare-up by trimming any and all unnecessary fat from the foods you grill. For the sake of flavor, meats should be left with a little fat on them. This prevents meat from drying out while grilling. Now when I talk about fat I mean not only the fat on the meat but any fat you have added like oils in marinades or sauces. Marinades should be allowed to sink in and marinated meat should be dripping in oil when it hits the grill. Allow marinades to drain a little before you start grilling. By reducing the amount of fat on meats that you grill you reduce the amount of flare-ups.

Of course you can’t and shouldn’t take away all the fat. Foods like chicken with the skin on or a good thick steak or hamburger patties are going to have fat and that fat is going to melt and quite likely catch fire. That’s fine. What you need is an escape plan. Unless you are grilling enough food to cover the entire cooking surface of your grill you need to be ready to move meats out of the fire, to another part of the grate. This gives you the ability to keep foods out of the way of a flare-up and prevent burning. Once you have cleared the area of a flare-up of food let it burn. Fats exposed to flame and intense heat will burn away quickly. You can also use upper warming racks to hold food temporarily while the flare-ups persist. Like fighting any fire the first step is to get the combustible materials out of the fire.

Once you have a flare-up going take control of it. By moving meat that is dripping fat into the flare-up you can keep the flare-up in one place. Say you have a dozen chicken thighs going. When a flare-up starts move the chicken out of the way, say to the warming rack. Now drop the chicken pieces into the middle of the flare-up for a few seconds to let the grease on the chicken drain and burn away. Do this with all the pieces, then clear out of that area of the grill. Let it burn down while you keep the chicken either to another side or on the warming rack. If you can’t prevent it then you need to be able to control it. If all else fails then you can reach for the spray bottle

A water filled spray bottle is a weapon of last resort. I know many so called experts that keep a spray bottle of water close at hand like a fire hose to put out flare-ups the second they happen. There are several reasons you don’t want to use a spray bottle. First of all you don’t put water on a grease fire. That’s always rule number one. Water and burning grease do not get along. Secondly while the water will reduce or even put out the fire temporarily it does nothing to get rid of the grease in the grill. So the second that grease heats up again the flare-up will be back. Thirdly, when you spray a grease fire with water the grease explodes (why we don’t do this in the first place). That grease splatters over food and, well let’s say that partially burned grease doesn’t taste good. If however you end up with an uncontrollable flare-up move the food out of the way, to a plate if you have to, turn off the burners and spray down the grease to put it out. Now you can start over.

Once you have had that big flare-up it's time to clean out your grill. Start by letting it heat up good and burn away as much grease as you can. Now get in there and clean out all the burnt grease and food from the bottom of your grill. A clean grill really does produce fewer flare-ups.