Chip pan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A chip pan is a deep cooking pan used to fry chips, where the pan is filled with oil or fat, and the sliced potatoes added. Strong heat is then applied. Today, they are made from either aluminium or stainless steel, although in the past were commonly made from cast iron.

Chip pans are commonly used in the United Kingdom, although are slowly being outmoded by deep fryers. They are well known for being a fire hazard.

[edit] Chip pan fires

A demonstration of a chip pan fire by the North Yorkshire fire service

Laboratory simulation of a chip-pan fire: a steel beaker containing wax is heated over a Bunsen burner until it catches fire. A small amount of water is then poured into the beaker. The water sinks to the bottom and vaporises instantly, ejecting a plume of burning liquid wax into the air.

The two main causes for chip pan fires are:

• The oil or fat overheats and catches fire.
• The oil or fat spills onto the cooker, either because the pan has been filled too high; or because wet chips are put in the hot oil, causing it to bubble up and overflow.

Chip pans are the most common cause of house fires in the United Kingdom, with around 12,000 chip pan fires every year, with 1,100 chip fires being considered serious. These fires result in over 4,600 injuries, and 50 deaths per year. British Fire Brigades frequently issue warnings and advice, and urge households to switch to a safer means of cooking chips.

However, it is commonly believed that chips taste better when cooked in the old-fashioned manner, using a chip pan. That idea is completely abandoned in Belgium, where households had replaced their chip pans with thermostat controlled deep fryers by 1970, for preparing the weekly national dish.

[edit] General advice on chip pan safety

The general advice from fire departments is never to leave cooking unattended (not even for a few seconds), always to turn appliances off when finished with them, and, if a chip pan is being used, never to fill it more than a third full.

If a fire starts in a chip pan, the current recommendation from the UK fire service is simply to:

The original quotation (see [1]) is "call 999", the number in the UK; see also emergency numbers in other countries.

Sometimes advice is given to try to extinguish the fire if it is safe to do so. (This was the guidance given in the UK prior to January 2006.) In this case the generally recommended method is:

• to turn the heat off (but without reaching over the flames);
• to smother the fire with a fire blanket, a towel (damp but not dripping), the pan lid, or a plate;
• and to leave it alone for at least 30 minutes (otherwise the flames will emerge again).

and in any event to get out and call the emergency services if the fire cannot be safely controlled.

The main don'ts are:

• don't move it;
• don't use a fire extinguisher;
• and most importantly, never to put water on it, as this can cause an explosive reaction.

[edit] External links

• London Fire Brigade advice on chip pans
• Greater Manchester Fire Brigade - Pictorial guide to dealing with chip pan fires
• Online copy of an Oxfordshire council safety flyer (PDF document)
• Photo story of a chip pan fire
• BBC News - A woman pulled from a chip pan fire thanks her rescuers
• North Yorkshire Fire Service - demonstration of a chip pan fire