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Is it safe to leave a gas oven on unattended the whole day (with a closed dutch oven inside it braising beef etc.), similar to crock pot cooking? It is a gas oven with pilot lights on the stove, so I am assuming the oven also has pilot lights.

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  • possible duplicate of Safe to leave oven on at 180F while at work to cook ribs?
    – SAJ14SAJ
    Mar 6, 2014 at 20:21
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    I disagree that this is a duplicate of the other question because gas and electric ovens have such significant mechanical differences.
    – KatieK
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:53
  • I think the reality of this question (knowing what question this stemmed from) is whether the oven on all day is safer than the crock pot on all day.
    – rfusca
    Mar 7, 2014 at 4:15
  • no, obviously??
    – njzk2
    Sep 21, 2021 at 21:04

2 Answers 2

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The US Fire Administration clearly recommends not leaving cooking appliances unattended when no one is home:

Based on 2006-2010 annual averages:

  • Unattended cooking was by far the leading contributing factor in home cooking fires. [...]
  • Ranges accounted for the largest share (58%) of home cooking fire incidents. Ovens accounted for 16%.

At the time this related answer was written, the Fire Administration said (they have since updated the page):

The leading cause of fires in the kitchen is unattended cooking.

  • Stay in the kitchen when you are frying, grilling, or broiling food. If you leave the kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove.
  • If you are simmering, baking, roasting, or boiling food, check it regularly, remain in the home while food is cooking, and use a timer to remind you that you're cooking.
  • Stay alert! To prevent cooking fires, you have to be alert. You won't be if you are sleepy, have been drinking alcohol, or have taken medicine that makes you drowsy.
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  • Thanks! Great answer. I still wonder if crockpots are the lesser evil.
    – highBandWidth
    Mar 8, 2014 at 0:31
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    Had a thermocouple (temp sensor) fail on my gas range. It cooked a pumpkin pie in under 20 minutes, and was headed upward from 500°F when I noticed the smell, temperature, and turned the thing off. Hate to think what would've happened If I'd've stepped out to buy a few last ingredients for Thanksgiving,
    – Wayfaring Stranger
    Mar 8, 2014 at 14:19
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In terms of the chance of your oven catching fire/exploding, I don't believe that whether you are there or not would not make much difference. The only difference you watching the oven makes is that you can respond if it were to catch fire - saving your house. (I suppose there are some cases where your oven would start smoking, which would make you turn it off)

Oven technology is fairly well developed, especially the fail-safe devices, but there is always the possibility that the fail-safe fails (especially as you probably have a slightly older oven, having mentioned pilot lights).

Overall, I would say that you'd probably be lucky if you did leave it on all day, however, with your house hanging in the balance, I would advise you to play it safe, and monitor your oven.

(I realize that some recipes take a long time, but reducing the cooking time, perhaps by reducing the size of the thing you're cooking, would be preferable to leaving an oven unattended)

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    Millions of people have been leaving gas ovens on unattended all day for over 100 years. When's the last time you heard of an oven burning down a house? Fact is it's darn hard to set a sealed metal box on fire.
    – Carey Gregory is on strike
    Mar 7, 2014 at 6:55
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    @CareyGregory Citation please. This is a safety question, and assertions like this should be supported.
    – SAJ14SAJ
    Mar 7, 2014 at 8:20
  • let us continue this discussion in chat
    – Cascabel ♦
    Mar 8, 2014 at 5:52
  • Things like drip coffee puts have redundant thermal fuses attached to their heating elements. This is good because if the heating element stays on it'll start to glow red and drip molten aluminum all over your countertop. - I tested this on a coffeepot heater element myself. Crockpots and rice cookers probably use thermal fuses in the 150-180°C range. Ovens however run in a wide temperature range, including self-clean mode. This makes using a thermal fuse safety device more difficult, and not all ovens come equipped. That means, with some ovens, the sky is the limit as far as temperatures go.
    – Wayfaring Stranger
    Mar 8, 2014 at 14:37

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