As families gather for the Thanksgiving holiday remembering a few common sense tips can make the difference between a holiday disaster and a fond holiday memory.

Instead of worrying if the turkey will be dry, Thanksgiving cooks should be worried about turning the pot handles in and keeping flammable items away from the burners.

Thanksgiving is a good time to reevaluate things we do every day that might be unsafe, said Preparedness director Nicole Holtgrefe with the American Red Cross.

"For example, whenever you’re cooking there are times when you have one pot on the stove you just might leave the kitchen, but when you have five or six or seven going you want to make sure that you always stay in there and you want to make sure that someone is always in the kitchen and watching things," she said.

In addition to keeping an eye on the stove, if the smoke alarm goes off do not take out the battery. In a recent study by the American Red Cross and the National Fire Protection Association 37 percent of people admitted to disabling a smoke alarm when it went off unexpectedly.

"I can’t tell you how many times I stress to people how important it is to keep that battery in there," Holtgrefe said.

The National Fire Protection Association found that cooking fires are more likely to occur on Thanksgiving day than any other day of the year.

download or listen to Aurora Meyer’s story here.