How to keep your kitchen festive, not flammable this holiday season

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- With the holidays in full swing and people preparing to gather around the table, the kitchen can become the most dangerous part of the home.

Fire safety officials have some reminders to make sure the holidays aren't memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Leaving cooking food unattended for even a minute could cause festivities to go up in flames. Cooking fires are the leading cause of home fires and home fire injuries, and they peak around the holidays.

Henrico County Fire Battalion Chief Doug Reynolds said staying safe starts with making a plan for cooking and prepping the kitchen.

"Anything that's flammable around the stove, you just need to move that away," Reynolds said. "Move that away so that's not going to be near the stove in case anything flares up."

Before starting to cook, clean the stove and oven of any grease or other food remnants.

Once food is on the heat, don't leave it unattended. Even with a busy house, there's ways to bring focus back to the kitchen, like with a wooden spoon.

"The wooden spoon trick is you put [it around] your wrist, or you put it in your pocket," Reynolds said. "So it just kind of pokes you, that way when you walk out of the room, you go oh, I got something on top of the stove that I need to go check."

If a fire does start, don't panic. Use a lid or another pan to smother fires on the stove. If you see flames in the oven, keep it shut and turn the heat off.

Keep a fire extinguisher nearby in case things escalate. And if that doesn't work, call the local fire department.

"If it's getting too big, please just get out of your house," Reynolds said. "Nothing is more important than you and your family. Let us come with the big guns, and we'll put out [the] fire."