Liberty Middle School Students Test Projects to Put Out Kitchen Fires

They tested three materials: sand, baking soda, and salt

WEST FARGO, N.D. — Seventh graders at Liberty Middle School are putting their fire-fighting projects to the test.

They had an assignment to pick a project that would help solve a problem in the community.

“We decided to do kitchen fires because we know it’s a serious problem not just here, but everywhere,” Jackson Windle said.

They tested three materials to smother the flames: sand, baking soda, and salt.

“We knew we wanted a blanket to cover the whole pan and maybe it’ll put out the oxygen so we knew we needed something big to cover the whole pan,” Nick Sibe said.

They did a survey on what people believe will work best for putting out a fire.

“We didn’t know about the salt and we needed a third test,” Windle said.

Out of the three materials they tested, sand worked best.

“Because it’s weighted and sat on it and put it out,” Marleigh Kurtz said.

The West Fargo Fire Department gave students the chance to test their creations by lighting vegetable oil in a pan on fire.

“The majority of our fires last year were actually kitchen fires from people cooking. Most of them were people leaving the pot on the stove which then kind of burned everything. Grease fires we didn’t have too many but this can help stop the spread of them from going further into the kitchen,” fire inspector John Neeb said.

The goal of the experiment is to show that throwing water over a kitchen fire will actually make it worse. Firefighters say you should use a fire extinguisher to put the fire out. You can also put a lid over a pot to block the oxygen.

“That is one reason I love my job is you get to do little experiments like this with the community and ourselves and businesses,” Neeb said.

Other projects the class did for the assignment include how to make tires less slippery.