In an effort to help improve cooking safety, the Fire Protection Research Foundation (Foundation), an affiliate of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), has released a report to help establish future standard test protocols for new and emerging technologies designed to prevent cooking fires. Currently, no such standards exist.

The “Development of Standardized Cooking Fires for Evaluation of Prevention Technologies” report, conducted in partnership with Hughes Associates, Inc., included the results of two live fire test series that took a look at the pre-ignition conditions for cooking oils in pans on electric surface cooktop ranges, and identified conditions that would present the greatest challenges to future prevention technologies. Examples of such prevention devices include special cooking ranges that control the amount of heat output or shut off after detecting excess heat.