Can a cooking oil spill-over cause a burnt-out outlet?
Any answers to this will probably be based of the actual experience of the answerer. Cooking oil is not a good conductor of electricity. It could possibly trip a GFCI. Outlets like the one shown will fail over the years because their contacts lose their ability to "hold tight" due to the metals being annealed over time because of the current draw. My experience is that outlets usually "cook" or arc for awhile and then finally let go and short out. This will even happen with 110 Volt outlets with little load. Corrosion and time, I think that's what did this in.