“Air Fryers are not inherently dangerous” UK ITV News

By Dr. Simon Batchelor (Gamos Ltd., Loughborough University).

The headline for this blog could have been negative.   A UK insurance company, Aviva, which processes fire insurance claims, issued a report which has its own webpage title ‘Aviva issues fire warning around air fryer habits’.   This was picked up by the journalists, and the ITV TV news presented it to the UK public.  So should we be worried about air fryers or not?  Does the report tell us anything particularly new?

First we need to be clear on the authors of the report, and the data they used.  Aviva as an insurance company is able to collect data on fire insurance claims and as such makes its money by both scaring people (so they buy household insurance) and by urging people to be sensible at the same time (to reduce claims).

So having interviewed 2000 households (the sampling frame was not explained) they note that nearly 70% of households in UK now own an air fryer, and of the people they interviewed 1 in 5 had “encountered potential or actual fire hazards in their homes due to one”.  When you see that data, “1 in 5”,  in isolation surely most people reaction or conclusion is that they are inherently dangerous….and yet journalists who reported on the report made a point of stating “Air Fryers are not inherently dangerous”.

In all surveys, it depends how you ask the question, and then how you summarise the statistics.  The keys are in the words “encountered potential or actual”.  So if the air fryer got to the point where it was giving out smoke, that was counted, as was overheating.  Air fryers are small fan driven ovens, and as such reach temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius inside.   If you don’t clean an air fryer the build up of grease then it is more likely to smoke, having burnt the thin layer of grease on the edges and walls of the fryer – just like any oven.  Indeed the report and the journalists make a point of advising consumers to clean their fryer regularly.  I personally find I don’t have to clean it after every time I use it, and a simple wipe of the surfaces is enough to stop build up of grease (as illustrated in the news item).

Air fryers have become popular in developed economies and are beginning to appear in low and middle income countries.  They are good for browning or roasting foods.   When consumer associations that check the quality of appliances test an air fryer, they look to cook standardized foods, and their food of choice is frozen chips and chicken legs.   The air fryer is said to be good for both cooking and for nutrition because the food is not being fried or sitting in grease, air fryers use the natural coatings of foods to cook them or recommend a spray of oil on the outer surface of the food.   This lack of cooking oil in the cooking process produces food with less calories and fats, and that’s important to developed economies where many people are obese.

Air fryers are quite specific in what and how they cook. They are a good complement to electric pressure cookers in a multi appliance kitchen, and indeed some electric pressure cookers now come with an air fryer lid (for an example see here, but there are many), for browning and crisping foods. They are energy efficient when compared to the older large ovens (they are light so don’t have to heat up a lot of metal), and they are energy efficient for certain foods when compared to charcoal. But this blog is supposed to be about the fire risk or lack of fire risk, not about their potential as an energy saving device that stands in contrast to wood and charcoal use and doesn’t create household air pollution with all it health consequences.

So, returning to the AVIVA report, and the risk of fires; there were 3% of households who experienced an actual fire, and there were also people who had experienced an ‘explosion’.

All electrical equipment can be dangerous which is why there are clear international standards on electrical safety. All equipment can also be dangerous if abused. Spilling water on electrical connections can short circuit and create sparks that can become a fire.  In the case of an air fryer, this is a device that is designed to create high temperatures to cook food, so in some circumstances it was able to catch fire. 

It is important though to have a closer look as to why they caught fire. In one case, the appliance was put on a kitchen towel, i.e. a flammable piece of cloth – not surprising that the heat transferred downward and set the cloth on fire.  In another case, they put the appliance on top of their larger old fashioned stove, and then the dog jumped up and switched the older stove on! Not surprisingly the appliance caught alight. So this 3% includes several examples where the fire ‘involved’ the air fryer, but it wasn’t the air fryers fault. That is not to say that an air fryer with grease build up couldn’t catch fire, I am just pointing out that the fires seem to have very specific situations and the statistics seem to point to the fallibility of human behaviour rather than the design of the air fryer.

And that’s why the report ends with a set of recommendations for preventing fires. Basically they recommend following the manufacturers safety guidelines of any air fryer! They suggest to never leave your air fryer unattended – but that is one of the things I like about my air fryer. I can set it going, it has a timer and temperature control, so I can do other things in the kitchen and even walk into another room. I agree that perhaps one shouldn’t leave the house, but interestingly there are now air fryers with wifi controls built in, and the sales pitch is that you can load the fryer and manage it from another room. So I am not sure that ‘Never’ is good advice.

“Avoid using excess oil: air fryers are designed to cook with minimal oil. Using too much oil can cause smoke and increase the risk of fire.” This is an important one. They are design to cook with minimal oil. And that relates to “Clean your air fryer regularly”, to stop build up of flammable grease or food residuals. 

They suggest proper placement of the air fryer on stable, non-flammable surface. As the examples above suggest – placing it on flammable cloth is as they say ‘asking for trouble’. Keep your air fryer away from water, Avoid overfilling your air fryer, Check your air fryer for any damage; all sensible ‘follow the instructions’ pieces of advice. And, god forbid a fire should happen, understanding electrical fires is important – you should not put water on an electrical fire. Keep a fire blanket and use the appropriate fire suppressing equipment or call the fire brigade if necessary. (If you don’t have money for a commercial fire blanket you can make your own)

Finally though, the ‘explosions’ in intrigue me. If the electricals go wrong, I have indeed seen sparks in kitchen appliances. But I wouldn’t describe that as an explosion? An air fryer is not under pressure like an LPG cylinder, so which bit of an air fryer explodes? It is made up of electrical components powering a heating element, with a fan directing the air circulation. How does one get an explosion?  Again I think we have to look carefully at the wording of the data; “experiencing an explosion in the home due to an air fryer”. This doesn’t mean the airfryer was the exploder – but perhaps that the fire started by an air fryer or ‘involving an air fryer’, led to an explosion of something else in the house.

So remember this report is written by an insurance company focusing on fire claims, and sampling UK households. The headline from the report is that under certain special circumstances air fryers can be ‘involved’ in house fires (not necessarily the start of the fire), but most of those circumstances are where the instructions have not been fooled, and the situation has been allowed to become dangerous.  

The journalists who reported on the report, actually concluded “Air Fryers are not inherently dangerous” and I think I would agree.

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Featured image credit, top: AI generated via Freepik, keywords people interacting with daily lives and air fryer.