Have you ever had a major fire while Bar B Que'ing? Maybe read this to make sure you won't, I have.

    I'm big on suggesting the most important supply to have on hand in ample quantities is water. Second to that is a way to purify water, generally some sort of stove or Bar B Que. It's fairly common and logical advice, after all we can go three days without water before bad things happen like dehydration and tragically death.
    This blog is not about water, it is about the means to purify water, which renders down to some way to boil it. I am taking particular homage to boiling water with Bar B Ques. Specifically I will relate two instances of fire danger with two different types of out door grills. One is a charcoal Weber, my favorite style of Bar B Que. The second style is a pellet type grill, a great way to cook.
   

We'll just let it burn out on it's own. 

This incident happened to me about 4 years ago on my porch. We live in an area where high winds are not uncommon, on this particular day it was gusting between 15 and 20 miles per hour. I started the Weber with a can starter and newspaper. The fire started and I poured the hot coals in the bottom of the grill then placed more charcoal on top. After the fire got up to cooking temps I replaced the cover and went into the house, the wind was strong. When I went back outside with a tray of food, I was astonished at what I saw. There was a flame shooting out the air vent on the bottom of the pot, flashing right on the plastic wheel about 2 1/2 feet below it. The wheel was on fire, the deck was on fire and the enclosed handrail was on fire inside. We successfully (two grandson's and myself) extinguished the flames, the boys were set on "fire watch" to take turns watching for flareups. What happened? The wind was so strong it reversed the draft in the firebox, causing the wind to blow from the top vents through the grill out the air vents on the bottom. I never dreamed this could happen, yet it did. The lessons, I will not BBQ in a high wind again, I will control the draft better and stay near the grill while it's heating up.  I wish I read this prior to grilling in the wind.

Hey hon! How's the chicken doing?

     The second event occurred with a pellet style Bar B Que, this is one of the best ways to cook outdoors, however not without dangers. On this day there was no wind, we were on the deck cooking out again. The pellet stove was performing well for the first five minutes or so when the temperature started rising, rapidly. As the grill got hotter and hotter the steel shell began to glow red, the gauge maxed out at 500 degrees. As the paint was peeling off I realized it was burning much hotter than 500 degrees. The pressure in the fire box was lifting the lid up allowing flaming gas to belch out, smoke and flames dominated the evening.
We turned the thing off, the reasoning was to let the fuel in the fire box to burn away. It was the right course of action to let it burn its self out, it took 30 minutes for it to settle down. This time the porch did not start on fire, the grill looked to be destroyed. What happened? I spent a great deal of my working life working on solid fuel boilers, I understand them well. Solid fuel (pellets in this case) will bridge over in a fuel supply hopper causing a lack of fuel. Pellets do one more thing when they get moist, they puff up a little bit and become sticky causing bridging to be a natural result. The pellets will also clump together causing more fuel to be put into the firebox than should be. That is what I think happened, clumps of fuel were being fed into the firebox overcoming the flame until enough air was introduced then wow, huge flames.

What do you suppose caused the grill to explode?

temperature
    We were fortunate in both instances that no one was injured and the house did not burn down. There was salmon in the pellet stove of which my son sampled and did not thing was "too bad". We painted the pellet stove and cleaned it up, we use it all the time, although the same thing happened again last night. We moved the Weber to another spot off the patio and still use it as well.
    I would like this blog to raise awareness to the fact that as convenient as a outdoor grill is we sometimes (I do for sure) take the safety for granted. Maybe due to using them all the time I became lazy and assumed too many aspects of grilling. In other words, carelessness seems to have been the predominant cause of both incidences. So in the spirit of being self reliant and resourceful I will add another bullet point to my emergency preparedness plan; Take nothing for granted and assumptions are dangerous.
    Thanks for reading, I'd like to hear from you, have you ever almost burned your house down while Bar B Que'ing? I'm sure there are stories out there, I'd like to hear some.

Thanks jimandkate emergencykitsplus.com