Serious fire management is required when you’re cooking a whole hog. Control the fire by opening the firebox area and cracking the lid. If you open the lid during a cooker fire, the oxygen will feed the fire and cause even more flames.
In a brick pit and on some cookers, a tented aluminum shield, drilled with holes, sits underneath the grate. As the hog cooks and the fat renders, it will drop on this shield and slide off to the ground or to the pan in the bottom of the cooker. There will be space around the perimeter of the pit, between the shield and the wall of the pit. When you’re shoveling coals into the cooker, place them in that space, away from the dripping fat, so you don’t start a grease fire.