As of mid-September 2026, here in Riverside, I’m waiting on evenings cool enough to run the oven without heating up the whole ranch house, and the habit that comes back with the oven is just as reliable: a sheet of aluminum foil laid flat across the oven floor to catch whatever bubbles over. A casserole that runs, a pie that drips, and the foil takes the hit.
The logic is simple. Protect the metal, skip the scrubbing, ball up the foil at the end of the week instead of scraping baked-on grease. I did it for years without a second thought.
What finally made me read the manuals was a fire department handout. Riverside County Fire’s cooking safety checklist says that in an oven fire you turn off the heat and keep the door closed, and then: “After a fire, the oven should be checked and/or serviced before being used again.” When I went looking at what the oven makers say about foil, fire was on the list…