While nothing beats a grilled meal, every year outdoor grilling accidents cause 19,000 Emergency Room visits and 7,900 home fires.  This is the reason UL, a leading product safety organization, is sharing simple, yet critical, grilling safety temps that families need to know and use.

Before reading the tips check out this video from Underwriters Laboratories on how fast an unattended grill goes up in flames:

Prepare For Safety First:

• Keep your grill a safe distance from your house or any building whenever possible
• Never us a grill in a garage, breezeway, carport, porch, under an awning or any other surface that can catch fire
• Be cautious of overhead obstruction including tree branches while grilling
• Keep a fire extinguisher handy when grilling and know how to properly use it.
• Never us gasoline or kerosene to light a charcoal fire.  Both can cause an explosion.

Safety While Cooking:

• Never leave the grill unattended, especially when young children or pets are nearby.
• Never attempt to restart a fire by adding additional lighter fluid to an already-lit grill, as this can cause a flare-up
• Keep kids, pets and bare hands away from the grill.
• Use insulated, flame retardant mitts, barbeque tongs and utensils when grilling
• Coals get HOT–up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  Wait until coals have completely cooled before disposing of them.

What is the Outdoor Cooking Guild?  It’s pretty simple; it’s a group of bloggers that concentrate on outdoor cooking in many forms, whether grilling, barbecuing, Cuban pig roasts, outdoor bread ovens or dutch oven campfire cooking.

“I think the people  that write about outdoor cooking have a love of working with fire to create good food, whether it’s simple barbecue dishes or a gourmet dining experience,” he explained.  There are groups and web rings for more particular topics, but this is a unique group of bloggers that know how to tame fire and cook outside better than inside.  From high tech gadgets to low tech campfires, this is about getting out of the house and feeding people.

If you’re interested in becoming a member, it’s currently a no-cost thing to do.  Just email Curt at curt (at)livefireonline.com (replace the (at) with @) with your name, contact information and blog address.  If the blog provides appropriate content, you’ll be sent information and badges to include on your blog.