SAUGUS — Second-hand space heaters, poorly-maintained furnaces and improperly-used gas stoves are ready to rear their heads with cold weather’s onset and become ready sources for fires, warned Fire Chief Michael Newbury.
With dropping temperatures around the corner, Newbury is amplifying his year-round warnings about fire dangers and taking aim at space heaters and other supplemental heating source dangers and urging residents to prepare heating systems to work during cold weather months.
His advice: Get a furnace serviced annually before winter arrives.
“If you fire up a heating system you don’t service, it can get a delayed ignition. All of a sudden, the house is full of smoke,” Newbury said.
He said the fire department sees an increase in faulty furnace calls in November and firefighters respond during the winter to emergency calls triggered by alternative heating sources, including outdated space heaters and people using gas stoves as a heating source.
The safest heaters are built with heat-resistant ceramic frames and kill switches that shut the heater off if it tips over.
Newbury spoke this week to a group of greater Lynn area social service agency representatives who work every fall to provide heating assistance to low-income residents and seniors.
He credited state Rep. Donald Wong, state Sen. Brendan Crighton and their legislative colleagues with helping to obtain $30 million in heating assistance to help people pay natural gas heating bills and buy heating oil.
The ongoing application process for people seeking assistance is a perfect opportunity to remind agency and organization representatives to alert people to winter heating hazards.
Newbury’s message about safe heating coincides with the state Fire Marshal’s reminder to change smoke alarm batteries this weekend and replace aging alarms.
“This weekend as you change your clocks, check your alarms,” said Peter Ostroskey. “Working smoke alarms are key to surviving a fire. This is a good time of year to replace regular batteries in your alarms, to test them, and to check for their birthdates. If they are more than 10 years old, replace the entire alarm,” he added.
