Don’t wear loose clothing.

Loose clothing can hang and make contact with grill grates or catch on oven doors. You don’t want this to cause a fire. Accessories like hats or scarves could fall onto the grill as well. Take them off before you start grilling or cooking indoors.

Keep flammable liquids and materials away from open flames.

Grills and gas ranges produce a lot of heat, so it’s possible for surrounding materials to catch fire if they’re too close to the heat source. Keep your cooking area clear of combustible materials and other items that may catch fire.

Don’t leave your food unsupervised while cooking.

One of the leading causes of cooking fires indoors and outdoors is an unattended cooking area. If you’re multitasking or distracted, it’s easy to forget about your food. Be extra cautious when cooking, especially outdoors. If you go inside to do something else, you may not walk past the grill and notice that it’s on.

Make sure pot handles do not extend past the stovetop.

You can easily knock pots and pans over by running into the handles. In some cases, they’ll fall off the stove entirely. This is incredibly dangerous as you can burn yourself and potentially cause a grease fire.

In the event of a grease fire, turn off the heat source and smother it with a lid. Douse the fire with baking soda if available.

The first thing to do if a grease fire occurs is turn off the heat source. Then find a lid and smother the fire to deprive it of oxygen. If you don’t have a lid, apply baking soda or salt to the fire to extinguish it. Don’t attempt to remove the pan from the stove as it will be dangerously hot.

If baking soda or salt is not enough, use a fire extinguisher to douse the fire. This can also lead to some splashing of oil so it is the last resort. Don’t get too close to the fire when using the fire extinguisher.

Do not use water to douse a grease fire. It may spread the fire and splash oil which is dangerous.

In the event of a microwave or oven fire, turn off the heat and unplug the appliance. Use a fire extinguisher to douse the fire.

Follow the same process with a microwave oven fire, but unplug the appliance as well. You can use a fire extinguisher, baking soda, or salt to extinguish the fire.

Keep kids and pets away from the cooking area.

This is a no-brainer, as you don’t want kids or pets to injure themselves by knocking something over in the cooking area. You’ll be working with high heat so it’s best to keep the in-and-out traffic at a minimum.

If you cannot contain a cooking fire, get out of the area and call 9-1-1.

Notify anyone in the household and get out as quickly as possible.