A new report by the National Fire Protection Association claims Thanksgiving is the leading day for home cooking fires in the United States. in 2017 U.S. fire departments responded to more than fifteen hundred home cooking fires on Thanksgiving day alone, which is a 240% increase over the daily average. Alan Stahl with the Topeka Fire Department says distracted cooking is one of the leading causes of house fires during the holiday season. "The thing we always hear is I just stepped out of the kitchen for a second. I was out of there for a minute and then I came back to a fire. You need to stay in a real close range of your kitchen all of the time so you can see it."