COLUMBUS, GA (WRBL) - While a lot of folks will be in the kitchen cooking up the side dishes for Thanksgiving, others will be outside heating up the oil to fry a turkey. But there are measures you need to take to make sure you and your family are safe.
Thanksgiving is tomorrow and the first step to a successful turkey fry is getting your turkey ready now!
It's all fun and games until something goes wrong and something like this happens! Captain Jeff Pace says there are two calls firefighters receive the most on Thanksgiving.
"Medical calls and grease fires," says Captain Pace. To avoid having to call Captain Pace and his squad here are some things you can do. He says you have to go with the instructions.
That's thawing the turkey.
"Cause if it's still frozen inside and you put it in and it has the water in there, when you put it in the first thing its gonna do it create a fire," says Cpt. Pace.
Once your bird is thawed you'll want to determine how much cooking oil to use by first measuring with water.
"You got to have the right amount of oil in there, cause if you overfill it, once you put the turkey in there and it has anything wet on it, its gonna start bubbling up," Cpt. Pace says.
Grease should be at 350 degrees and your bird should cook around three minutes for every pound.
"Have everything away from the structure, anything that can catch on fire if it does. if it spills over all you have to do is turn off the gas and the fire goes right out, people don't understand that," he says.
