Help: what the meaning of "pull their fat out of fire"

It means, basically, to help someone in a difficult situation.

Pulling the fat from a fire would stop a fire from becoming larger, or cause it to go out.....hence it is controlling a bad situation.


Saving someone's bacon has a similar meaning.

thank u very much ,guy.

Pulling fat out of a fire is a risky operation, requiring both bravery and skill.

dlowan's right - and it doesn't necessarily require bravery or skill. It could have been just dumb luck.

Needs a working fire-extinguisher.

"pulling the fat from the fire" meaning to alleviate a dangerous condition - nothing I read about this says anything about bravery or skill; mainly it's about salvaging a damaging situation. And I would say that it wouldn't have to be a 'dangerous' situation - merely a tricky one - like if you saved someone's face, you could say you pulled the fat from the fire.... saved a situation from getting worse.

Once I pulled the 'fat' out of the fire and nearly burned my house down.

Given that "fat" whether grease or oil or lard is an incendiary material which will fuel the fire, removing the fat requires some bravery and skill.

Pulling someone else's chestnuts out of the fire is requires much less talent.

Noddy's right. I suspect that "pulling the fat from the fire" is a mix-up of two traditional figures of speech:

- "Now the fat's in the fire" = now there's really going to be trouble!

- "pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire" = retrieve the situation for someone.