People who do not clean their air fryers risk their devices becoming a fire hazard, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has warned. 

Roughly three quarters of Irish people have an air fryer and many use them every day. 

However, according to a recent survey by the CCPC, a majority of users do not clean them daily. 

7% of daily users clean them once a month, while 3% said they never clean them. 

On Newstalk Breakfast, CCPC spokesperson Grainne Griffin said people who use them regularly need to clean them often as well. 

“It's potentially a lot of oil, it's a lot of grease, it's all of that building up in your air fryer,” she said. 

“It's all of that building up in your air fryer, then being heated up again and again at really extreme temperatures. 

“People just need to know that they need to clean them properly and also where to place them in the kitchen and how to use them safely.”

Ms Griffin continued that fire prevention does not take a “huge amount” of effort. 

“I think the most important thing to be aware of is that there needs to be a level of clearance around the air fryer when you're using it, so that hot air can escape and so the vents work,” she said. 

“Your instructions will give you actual details; on average, we saw around them generally looking for about a 10% clearance area around the air fryer.

“We've seen reports of, for example, sockets getting scorched or walls being scorched because air fryers, which get very hot, have been pushed up against it and there hasn't been adequate clearance left around the machine.”

Last year, the CCPC ordered the recall of some 60,000 air fryers due to the risk of overheating. 

Main image: A dirty air fryer. Picture by: Alamy.com.