Thanksgiving is a day for family, food and gratitude — but it’s also one of the busiest days of the year for ADT. While millions gather around tables, our monitoring professionals are busy helping to keep homes safe and celebrations stress-free for our 6.3 million customers.
Why Thanksgiving is a high-risk day
It’s tempting to slip away from the kitchen to chat with guests or watch a football game, but leaving high-heat appliances unattended can be dangerous. According to the National Fire Protection Association:
- Cooking causes nearly half of all home fires in the U.S.
- Thanksgiving is the leading day of the year for home cooking fires, with more than three times the daily average.
- In 2023 alone, an estimated 1,446 home cooking fires were reported on Thanksgiving Day.
- Unattended cooking is the leading cause of these incidents.
ADT’s monitoring team knows this firsthand, with alarm activity spiking by 15% on Thanksgiving compared to a typical Thursday. In response, we ensure extra staff are on hand at our six U.S.-based monitoring centers to respond quickly when the unexpected happens.
‘Our customers need us’
ADT monitoring agents are the company’s frontline heroes, working over the holiday to ensure customers can enjoy the day with fewer worries.
“We step up to the plate. We're here and we're all involved and we're engaged with our customers because they need us to take care of them,” said John Turner, Monitoring Senior Unit Manager and a 20-year ADT veteran.
Christian Duncan, a monitoring agent based in Knoxville, Tennessee, recalls the Thanksgiving rush well. This will be his second year working the holiday. “It’s all-hands-on-deck and there are a lot of calls, but the energy among the agents is great,” he said. “We’re all in it together.”
On a day when every burner is going and the kitchen is full, ADT-monitored Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors* help keep people safe by detecting smoke, dangerous carbon monoxide and heat, sounding an alarm in the home, sending an alert through the ADT+ app, and notifying ADT’s Monitoring Center so an agent can quickly respond in real time.
Many alarm calls ADT receives on Thanksgiving stem from cooking mishaps. Deep-fried turkeys can be a particular problem, especially when they are not thawed properly.
Turner recalled one incident where a frozen bird was plunged into a pot of hot oil, causing an explosion that injured a customer and set a deck and the side of a home ablaze. Thanks to quick action by monitoring agents, the fire department arrived in time to treat the customer and prevent further damage.
The pace around the rest of the house on Thanksgiving can be just as hectic. Guests are coming and going, people are watching the game in one room and setting the table in another. With the ADT+ app, customers can take a quick look to see who just came through the door or how things are going in the living room, without losing their place in the kitchen or at the table.
Tools for smoother holidays
Thanksgiving isn’t the only busy time of the year. The holiday season, from Halloween to New Year’s Day, sees a spike in calls. It is also when homes are packed with extra lights, decorations, and small appliances running at full tilt. Plugging a coffee maker, slow cooker or warming tray into an ADT+ Appliance Module means customers can turn it off with a simple tap in the ADT+ app instead of wondering later if they left it on.
Holiday lights plugged into smart plugs connected to the ADT+ security system can be turned off from their phone or set on a schedule, so the house winds down even if the night runs long. It is one less “did I remember to…?” moment at the end of a busy day.
But if things do go awry, our monitoring agents are ready. Behind every cleared alarm and calm reassurance is an agent dedicated to helping keep families safe. They listen to panicked voices, coach customers through uncertain situations, and dispatch help when needed with empathy and professionalism.
“If I’m calm, they calm down,” said Duncan, who added, “I would want the same kind of protection for my own family. If I were away during a holiday and something were to happen, I would want someone to have my back like I do for our customers.”