First of all, do not use your turkey fryer on a wooden deck, near a wooden structure or under the eves of any building. Sounds reasonable? Well that's just what one Navy Sailor did. He brought in his turkey fryer from home to do some cooking on base. Imagine explaining to your commanding officer several thousands of dollars in damage to a berthing building. Read the whole story
Second, never leave your turkey fryer unattended. This really is a two person job. You need a good volunteer to do the running while you watch the turkey fryer. Even a few minutes could cost you $71,000 or more. Robert here lost his garage and everything in it, plus did a lot of damage to his house when he ran in the house for a couple of minutes. Just think about it for a second, several gallons of hot oil and a constant burning flame. When turkey fryers get too hot they don’t just catch fire, they can explode. Read More
As John Drengenberg of Underwriters Laboratories described it, when the oil in one of these turkey fryers catches fire "it's like a vertical flame thrower." That's what happened up in Minnesota when flames shot up from a turkey fryer and destroyed a $400,000 house. Just watch their video to see how fast and how bad things can get.
Now I'm not trying to scare you away from frying turkeys. It's a great way to make an incredible meal; however, as Underwriters Laboratories has said, careful use of a turkey fryer is a safe way to cook. The problem is that people just don't take the time to read the instructions and do not think about what they are doing. A turkey fryer contains several gallons of oil. At temperatures over 300 degrees F that oil becomes about as flammable as gasoline. So, Read, Think, then cook or you could be the next victim.
