Edhat Staff
Source: Santa Barbara County Fire Department
When the temperature drops, the number of residential fires goes up. The Santa Barbara County Fire Department wants you to have a worry free winter by taking the following precautions:
1. Before you use your heater for the first time this winter, have a qualified serviceman inspect your furnace and change the filter.
2. If you have a fireplace or wood burning stove in your home, make sure it’s clean and inspected by a qualified chimney sweep. Burn only dry, well-seasoned wood. Never burn trash in your fireplace, never use gasoline, charcoal lighter fluid or other fuel to light a fire. When using your fireplace, make sure the opening is covered with an approved metal screen or glass doors. Never leave a fire unattended.
3. When using space heaters, make sure there is a minimum of 36 inches of clearance on all sides of the heater.
4. If you burn candles, never leave them unattended. Avoid the use of candles in the bedroom where you may fall asleep. Always use a sturdy candle holder and keep candles at least 12 inches away from anything flammable.
5. Make sure there are operating smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors on each level of your home. Your family should have and practice a home fire escape plan.
With these helpful tips, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department hopes you will have a safe and worry free winter.
Five good reasons NOT to burn wood:———1) The American Lung Association has declared wood smoke a Super Pollutant on par with diesel. 2) Wood smoke is carcinogenic (cancer-causing) and also contributes to heart disease 3) When you smell wood smoke, you are breathing in a cocktail of chemicals such as benzene and carbon monoxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs), sulfur dioxide, etc 4) Wood smoke is worse for you than secondhand cigarette smoke 5) You are poisoning yourself, your neighbors and the air quality
Yes, let’s just burn fossil fuels and expedite global warming. No reason to burn renewables. Too bad that fireplaces and wood stoves are legal.
[Of course the anti-wood fire folks would be the first to respond. Sigh… It’s an original form of recycling — no longer living trees get burned to provide heat. Yes, it’s bad if everyone does it all the time, but an occasional wood fire isn’t so offensive that you should turn it into your cause celebre.]
And fire department, give me a break. Are normal people now so incompetent that they can’t assess the soundness of their furnace or change their house heater filters themselves? They can’t assess whether their chimney is sooty enough to require cleaning? How clueless has the general populace become? I find these kind of “let a professional do it” instructions insulting.