Experts offer tips to keep Memorial Day barbecues safe

May 24—Before you fire up the grill this Memorial Day weekend, make sure you're following safety protocols to keep the fire on the food and away from the house.

"You want to make sure that your hoses and supply lines are fresh," said Bill Lamar, emergency manager. "If you're on a deck, you're not supposed to be grilling with a wood deck."

Moving to an open patio or firm surface is a smarter choice, Lamar said.

Lamar also mentioned avoiding using the grill under a patio roof or other covered areas.

"You want to avoid that because that heat's going to come up, get into the rafters, might catch something on fire," Lamar said. "Make sure you got a clear path around it."

If families decide to grill at local parks, most of those are charcoal grills, which means properly disposing of the coals after cooking is important.

"If you're doing anything with charcoal grills. make sure that if you do dump out any of the used coals, make sure that the kids or the rest of the family know to avoid that area," Lamar said.

Designated waste bins are good spots to place coal after grilling, because outside of causing a fire, kids could accidentally run into it.

Fire safety while grilling is important, but keeping health in mind is another key consideration when cooking.

Thomas Beavers, environmental health specialist with the St. Joseph Health Department, spoke about the importance of grilling food all the way through.

"You want to make sure you grill everything up to the proper temperature," Beaver said. "Thermometers are the best way."

Each food can have different temperatures to grill to

Many popular foods must reach varying temperatures to be safe to eat. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ground meat should be cooked to 160 degrees, seafood to 145 degrees and chicken to 165 degrees.

Because the temperatures are different, Beaver suggests cooking separately instead of in the same marinade.

"When you go to cook, if you cook your chicken in 165 but only cook pork chops 155 and it is mixed with the chicken, you aren't cooking off all the bad things that are in the chicken," Beaver said. "So you are possibly going to have a contamination issue that happens there."

Pre-cooking foods before grilling can be a great way to set up, but you shouldn't prep foods too early, as they can go bad.

"Potentially hazardous food can last seven days. After seven days, you have to throw it away," Beaver said. "The rule of thumb (when leaving food out) is keep hot foods hot and cold food cold."