BBQ party tonight

[Grumpynan]

We have planned a family get together this evening with a charcoal bbq in the garden. I hasten to add it’s a proper one not disposable.

should we still go ahead, or should I play save and cook the food indoors, what’s everyone else doing,

I mean, it stresses disposable bbq, says nothing about kettle ones in a garden. But I don’t want to cause any problems, and tbh we have a lot of trees around us and I’m a little worried, DH says I’m being silly but ?

What a different way of looking at things 😂 which also has now been updated on gov site to just say BBQ probably due to this different view.

The alert:

Severe Alert

Issued by the UK Government

There is a very high risk of wildfires nationally. Residents, landowners and visitors should not undertake any activity that could start a fire, including disposable barbecues, firepits, garden incinerators or fireworks. Even a small flame can rapidly develop into a major wildfire placing lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders at risk.

Follow official updates and report signs of fire immediately by calling 999. Search gov.uk/alerts for more information.

Someone in our town had one too.
They also survived (their house didn't)

Where do you live where houses burnt down due to a home, not disposable, barbecue?

To be fair I dont know what kind of barbecue, but people don't really use disposable at home, do they?

FFS ! people are just trying to stop emergency responders dying and houses and land being burnt. Fire isn't great, pretty sure you can manage without a BBQ for a week or so.

Where have houses burnt down due to a barbecue at home?

So there’s no houses which have burnt down due to home barbecues?

I have no idea, wasn't me that stated that, my comment is around getting a bit of perspective, your need for a sausage/vegan thing on the BBQ that could be done indoors, doesn't trump the life, houses or welfare of others, have you actually witnessed any of these fires engulfing Europe.

A house in a residential street where i live.

Barbecues do not burn down houses. Careless people who don't use barbecues sensibly burn down houses.

There’s no need to lie for posters to lie about a home barbecue burning down a house though, is there?

A barbecue in a garden on a proper barbecue with bricks, concrete or gas is very low risk.

That is extremely unusual but sounds completely unrelated to weather conditions given it didn’t spread.

The point is not that every barbecue is dangerous, of course it's not. No idea what the stats are, but imagine it's something like only 1 in 10,000 home barbecues (non-disposable) that causes any kind of fire in normal times (including small ones).

The point is that right now the fire service shouldn't have to deal with even that 1, because barbecues are completely non-essential and the fire service are already over stretched, and also because that 1 fire could right now be way more dangerous than normal because of the drought. If a fire does start then it's not going to be much comfort knowing that 9,999 other barbecues that day were fine. Better right now for it not to start at all.

Are we not to light candles or turn on hobs or ovens, washing machines, dryers, curlers, straighteners etc in case they cause a fire, no matter how remote a possibility?

On our local news it was reported that fire brigade asked people to not light barbecues (not stipulating what types of BBQs). Obviously it’s not legally enforceable but I guess with courtesy to the fire brigade maybe people should refrain from lighting them for awhile even if you think it is safe to do so

If you were to line up all the most common sources of fires starting in order of risk (and then exclude things that are actually essential like cooking), then it would actually make perfect sense for us collectively to do the things that are at the top of the risk list a bit less often right now, since the people who put out fires for us are overstretched. Or at the very least to do them much more carefully than usual.

Of course if all you're focused on is the specific risk posed by your one individual barbecue or candle-lit bath, then deciding to skip it this week is going to look like overkill. It's the collective effect of all those individual decisions that matters though.

I feel like people don't seem to believe that the fire brigade might actually not reach them as quickly as usual right now because of the wildfires. You'd think that alone would make people want to be cautious, regardless of the wording of the alert.

Using Total Fire Bans in Australia as an example, then no, nothing inside the house is included.

As previously stated, I didn't say anything about houses burning down. No lies from me.

'will warn people not to light anything that could spark a fire' this means anything in my understanding.

I wouldn’t use any sort of BBQ at the moment. It only takes one spark and it’s like a tinderbox over the country at the moment.

Gas BBQs are still allowed at home during total fire bans in Victoria and NSW.

Guns don't kill pepple, and all that nonsense ....

Why can people just cook inside in a cooker during the current situation instead of having to rationalise what might or might not happen. It's probably a very small risk, but why take it at all. It makes no discernible difference to anybody's life just to do this but could make a huge difference to many lives by not doing it. You can still eat outside. You can still have the get together or party, still have cool beers on your patio, chilled wine by your pool, cocktails in your pagoda. Just cook the burgers and chicken drumsticks in your oven.
You don't need government or neighbours to tell you. Just do it because it's the right thing to do in the current situation.
It's far safer from a food safety point of view too.

Nobody is saying that. There is some risk in everything we do but we accept that to carryout everyday activities, like cooking our food in an oven. But some things we just don't need to do when we are in this situation and one is cooking food outside on a self contained fire.

As someone in the risk industry you should well know that risk reduction starts by eliminating a hazard if it is not required. The hazard of BBQ is not required so eliminate it. Then no risk mitigation is required because there is no hazard. That's the situation here. There's no need to create the hazard in the first place which is the strongest risk mitigation you can implement.