The time Dawn saved my cast iron from a grease fire disaster last month

I was frying chicken in my cast iron skillet in Detroit last month and the grease got way too hot, like smoking bad. The pan caught a flame and I panicked, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and dumped a bunch on it (dumb idea I know). It actually killed the flame somehow and the pan cleaned up fine after, but my smoke alarm went off for 20 minutes straight. Has anyone else used dish soap in a weird emergency situation like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordan_anderson9010d ago

My buddy Mike tried to put out a grill grease fire with baking soda once and it just made a huge mess and barely did anything. He ended up using a bucket of sand from his kid's sandbox and that actually worked way better, though the burgers were ruined obviously. The sand just smothered the flames and he just had to pick gravel out of the grill grates later. Dish soap on a grease fire seems like a lucky break for you though, I would have guessed it would make things worse. Dawn must have some weird chemical thing going on with hot grease.

brian_ramirez10d ago

Didn't you try the lid first? I've had good luck just covering a flaming skillet with a metal lid and cutting off the oxygen, no mess and it's done in seconds.