From November 24th to 30th the Canada Safety Council is reminding residents to be mindful in the kitchen.

Since 2007, the Canada Safety Council sends out messages on a variety of safety risks including farming, roads, community, and driving. This year for a fire safety topic they are turning their attention to the kitchen.

Cochrane Fire Services, Fire Prevention Officer, Jeff Avery, shares while they don't necessarily see kitchen incidents go up this time of year they are called out for carbon monoxide concerns. "This time of year CO alarms definitely go up because people's furnaces are kicking in and people are starting to fire up their wood-burning stoves and fireplaces, so we do have a higher volume of CO calls but we don't historically have a higher number of kitchen fires in this month."

While they don't see a higher number of incidents the department does respond to at least a couple of calls a month in regards to kitchen concerns. " A lot are false alarms where people are cooking and forget something in the oven or on top of the stove and the smoke alarm starts to go off, so we'll get called out. We will get there and see a bunch of smoke in the house but that's because something is burning."

All incidents can generally be avoided by being careful. "Don't leave your food unattended or some people leave stuff in the oven and go out for the day or somebody has something on the stove cooking and they'll run to the store real quick while it's still boiling or cooking, so definitely avoid leaving the house if you have stuff in the oven or on top of the stove."

Canada Safety Council reminds residents if they feel endangered or unable to control the fire, to call the fire department and evacuate their residence.