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The Unattended Cooking Fire Problem

It is widely understood that Unattended Cooking is the leading cause of residential fires and fire-related injuries.
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Why are Unattended Cooking Fires a Pervasive Problem?

Even before the pandemic’s shelter-in-place restrictions (which served to exacerbate everything described next) families or individuals were subject to many typical distractions during cooking: talking on the phone, chatting with a family member or neighbor who’s just dropped by, watching TV from another room, running down the hallway to check on the laundry, helping the children study, getting ready for an activity, or playing a video game. 
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In senior living, these distractions can be amplified by other factors, i.e. a bit less attentiveness towards multitasking in general, medications that can impact reaction times or even drowsiness.

How Is It Being Solved?
Education:

The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) teams up with local Fire Departments to educate the public on the dangers of unattended cooking. National Fire Prevention Week is supported by many organizations every October.  FEMA, NFPA, Red Cross, and many other organizations continually strive to publish articles and bulletins aimed at helping generate cooking fire prevention awareness.

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Regulation:

Safety standard organizations have responded to unattended cooking fire issues with new game-changing regulations: UL 858-60A and CSA C 22.2 # 61 

7.24. UL and CSA require that electric ranges and cooktops with coil burners pass a new cooking oil ignition test made after April 2019.   

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Technology:

Over the last 50 years automated technologies developed to deal with unattended cooking fires tend to fall into two primary categories:

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  • Suppression/Mitigation  (Attempting to put out a cooking fire after it has started.)

Fire suppression systems are designed to respond to an actual fire with live flames that, in some cases, has already been burning for minutes.

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  • Prevention  (Stopping a cooking fire before it can start.) 

               In the 1980s, the first-generation temperature limit technology for electric ranges was developed                   to prevent the heating element from overheating.

               The second-generation temperature limit technology was developed in 2016.

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GOLi has developed the latest Cooking Temperature Limit (CTL) technology for electric stoves, gas, and induction ranges/cooktops.


Introduced in North America in 2020, GOLi provides electric coil-element, glass, gas and induction ranges/cooktops with Unattended Cooking Fire Prevention in North America, Europe, and Asia.

How Well Do These Technologies Work?

FIRST and SECOND GENERATION technologies complying with the new UL858 60A auto-ignition test have been negatively affected by deficiencies in cooking performance, maintenance, and cost.

Cooking Performance*

Products based on these earlier technologies suffer from a failure to heat up quickly and/or are slow to cool down. Some products lack heat retention when cycling and tend to cause extreme time lags in re-heating. This stops the cooking process altogether. Users also complain that the cooking temperature is too low for frying and cooking time is too long for boiling.  

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*Why does cooking performance matter? 

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Simply put, when customers are disappointed or infuriated with the lack of a familiar cooking experience, they do not want to use the product and tend to remove or replace the “unsatisfactory” solution. This defeats the unattended cooking fire solution.   

3rd GENERATION CTL technology developed by GOLi exceeds this challenge

with products that cook the way people expect, with easy cleaning/maintenance and high energy efficiency at low cost.

How Does GOLi Compare?

  • GOLi’s technical innovation surpasses these issues by conforming to UL858 60A with products that cook the way people are accustomed to.  

  • GOLi CTL burners, glass cooktops, and gas cooktops heat quickly and thoroughly without a noticeable change in how people cooked with their former, standard elements. 

  • GOLi CTL burners cool at the same rate as standard coil elements and are just as easy to clean and maintain. 

  • GOLi reduces energy consumption in excess of most EnergyGuide-rated products in any category.   

  • GOLi is the preferred solution for Prevention, Performance and Price.   

  • GOLi is currently available with an industry-leading warranty.

Check out GOLi CTL (Cooking Temperature Limit) burners for electric ranges via the side-by-side video below:

In the video, the Right rear burner has a regular coil burner without any temperature limit. The front left burner has a GOLi CTL stove burner with GOLi 3rd generation CTL technology.

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The cooking oil in the cast iron pan with the regular coil burner caught fire at 6:56. The cooking oil in the cast iron pan with the GOLi CTL stove burner did not catch fire.

References

“Unattended Cooking Fires are the number one cause of residential fires in the United States” – The Wilmington Fire Department, DE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujEHMW379o 


“Unattended Cooking is the leading cause of U.S. residential fires” – Greater Naples Fire Rescue District, FL. https://www.facebook.com/GreaterNaplesFire/posts/unattended-cooking-is-the-leading-cause-of-us-home-fires-prevent-them-by-keeping/1973412002682240/ 


“Cooking is a leading cause of residential fires. Never leave cooking unattended” – Yukon Protective Services, Yukon, Canada. https://twitter.com/YukonPS/status/961333794103025665 


“Unattended Cooking is the leading factor in residential cooking fires”  – Maugansville Goodwill Volunteer Fire Company, Washington County, MD. https://www.mgvfc.org/safety/cooking-fire-safety/ 

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