Firefighter Shows Why It’s a Bad Idea To Pour Water on a Grease Fire!

If you didn’t already know, using water to put out a grease fire is quite literally the worst thing you can do to help the situation. If you don’t believe me, just hit the play button below and watch what happens when this firefighter dumps a cup of water onto a small grease fire, turning it into a giant fireball in a split second. You’d literally be better off to just let a grease fire burn out than you would to try to extinguish it with water.

The reason, to the best of my understanding, that water makes things so much worse is due to the fact that it doesn’t mix with the grease, it sits on top of it. As it’s doing so, the flames heat the water to its boiling point, breaking apart the molecules of hydrogen from the oxygen, which then feeds the fire a fresh source of fuel in the newly-introduced oxygen. At least that’s how it was explained to me.

So what do you do in the event of a grease fire? If at all possible, the best course of action is to smother the fire, using some kind of fire blanket or even a pan if the fire is in your kitchen. Cutting off the supply of oxygen is the key, and there’s no better way to do that than with something heavy and thick. Alternatively, a dry powder extinguisher would be a great option, since they don’t use a high-pressure canister to blast the contents out at high speeds. If that’s not an option, look for baking soda or salt, but keep in mind, you’re going to need a lot of either, and possibly both. Just dump them into the base of the fire as thick as possible.

The next option would be a fire extinguisher, but honestly, this one could make things more dangerous as well, since the pressurized contents of the canister can send hot flaming grease in all directions if not used properly. Or, it may be a great idea to just avoid the fire itself in the first place. An ounce of prevention, as the saying goes.