--- title: "Grill flare-ups" description: "DCS grill flare-ups every time something fatty goes on. Occasional flame when fat hits heat is cooking; a grill that burns everything on it is telling you…" url: "https://dcsmiami.support/symptoms/grill-flare-ups/" date_modified: "2026-09-14" Appliance type: "bbq-grill" --- # DCS grill flare-ups ### What to do in the next ten minutes If the flames are persistent rather than occasional, turn the burners off and close the lid — starving it is safer than moving the food. Once everything is cold, lift out the grates, the radiants and the tray underneath and look at all three. Fat with nowhere to go is usually obvious the moment the tray comes out. Check the radiants go back the way they came out. ### It is a fire question, not a cleaning one We treat this as a safety call and that is not caution for its own sake. A loaded grease path is fuel lying directly over open burners in a closed metal box, and once it takes hold it is not something a lid will always contain. The work to prevent it is an hour and costs less than almost anything else on the island, which is the least comfortable part of the arithmetic. ### Clean on top, untouched underneath Almost every badly flaring grill we open has spotless grates. The cleaning that people do is the cleaning they can see, and the part that matters is one layer below it. If you do nothing else after reading this, take the radiants out once and look at the tray beneath them — the state of it will tell you how often this needs doing for the way you actually cook. The grease path is loaded Tray full, channel blocked, cup overflowed. Everything rendered out then lands on the burners, which is precisely what the design exists to prevent. The radiants are warped, holed or wrongly fitted They are not heat shields for their own sake — their shape sheds drippings sideways. Warped, holed or upside down, they funnel fat down instead. The burners are cooking unevenly A burner that has burned through puts a hot column where the design did not intend one, and fat that would have rendered gently ignites instead. When did anybody last take the radiants out? Not the grates — the trays underneath them. On most grills we open, the answer is never, and that is the finding. Is the drip cup overflowing? If it is full, everything upstream of it is full too, and the path has been backing up for a while. Do the flare-ups happen on one area or across the grill? A single hot spot points at one burner or one radiant. Across the whole width points at the tray and the channel. Flames coming up through the grates at every cook What it usually means Persistent flare-ups are a grease path problem, not a cooking technique problem Radiants refitted the wrong way round defeat the whole design The cheapest work on an outdoor kitchen, with the highest consequence if skipped What to do in the next ten minutes If the flames are persistent rather than occasional, turn the burners off and close the lid — starving it is safer than moving the food. Once everything is cold, lift out the grates, the radiants and the tray underneath and look at all three. Fat with nowhere to go is usually obvious the moment the tray comes out. Check the radiants go back the way they came out. It is a fire question, not a cleaning one We treat this as a safety call and that is not caution for its own sake. A loaded grease path is fuel lying directly over open burners in a closed metal box, and once it takes hold it is not something a lid will always contain. The work to prevent it is an hour and costs less than almost anything else on the island, which is the least comfortable part of the arithmetic. Clean on top, untouched underneath Almost every badly flaring grill we open has spotless grates. The cleaning that people do is the cleaning they can see, and the part that matters is one layer below it. If you do nothing else after reading this, take the radiants out once and look at the tray beneath them — the state of it will tell you how often this needs doing for the way you actually cook. ### Should I spray water on a flare-up? No. Water on burning fat spreads it, and on a hot grill it can turn a contained flare into something much worse. Turn the burners off, close the lid and let it starve. Then find out why the fat was there. ### Would a different cooking method help? It would mask it. Trimming fat and using indirect heat produces fewer flare-ups on any grill, but a grill whose grease path works handles fatty food without drama. If yours cannot, the path is the thing to fix rather than the menu. --- **[Read full article: Grill flare-ups](https://dcsmiami.support/symptoms/grill-flare-ups/)**