On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the Morro Bay Community Center was full of volunteers taking on the hefty task of preparing 800 Thanksgiving meals.
The typical Thanksgiving turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing will be served, but how do they, and you at home, make sure all of this food is prepared safely?
Fire Captain Erin Riffle at CAL FIRE Station 21 shared a few turkey tips.
“You want to make sure children are not near the stove and everything like that, right, cause they might be reaching out on top of the stove to grab something and hurt themselves and never leaving the kitchen unattended," Riffle said. "Grease fire inside the house in a frying pan, the best way to put that out is putting a lid over it."
According to the National Fire Protection Association, 80% of fires on Thanksgiving Day are due to cooking.
Deep frying turkey is becoming more popular, making it important to take extra precautions.
“People not wanting to be outside when they deep fry their turkey, we always recommend that you’re outside of any kind of building when you’re doing that, making sure the turkey is fully thawed out so there’s no ice inside of the hot oil,” Riffle said.
Riffle also said that people need to turn off the flame before dropping the turkey in the deep fryer, so there’s no risk of overflowing oil meeting an open flame.
With the large number of people that community members in Morro Bay plan to serve, deep-fried turkeys are not on the menu.
“The turkey was prepared and it is brought up to the proper temperature, which is 165 degrees and then will be maintained at that prior to us serving," said Linda Winter, Morro Bay Lions Club president.
The Morro Bay Lions Club will be serving to-go Thanksgiving meals from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, November 27, in front of the community center. People can drive up to the center or walk up to pick up the dinner with no prior registration needed.
“It is truly on a first-come, first-served basis. When we run out of food, we say, ‘Yay we did it,’" Winters said.
Riffle said that in case of an emergency, immediately call 911.
“Be safe and have a great holiday," Riffle said.
