Firefighters are warning to public not to tackle chip pan fires themselves, after a woman suffered burns in Sheffield.

The fire started at around 2pm on Saturday on Liberty Hill and was out when fire crews arrived. But a woman had suffered scalds to her hands after tackling the blaze herself with a damp tea cloth.

“Decades ago fire services used to tell people how to put out a chip pan fire using a damp tea cloth. These fires can get out of control in seconds and even a few drops of water from a tea cloth can cause the oil to expand and explode. Nowadays the advice is to simply get out, stay out and call 999, or even better don’t use a chip pan at all,” a fire service spokesperson said.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue still gets called to dozens of chip pan fires every year. Officers are calling on residents to ditch chip pans in favour of oven or takeaway chips instead.