Home heating safety tips as temperatures drop

(KION) As temperatures get colder this fall, heaters are coming out of storage. Fire and electric utility officials are urging customers to be cautious when heating their homes.

Electric heaters can pose a fire risk when not properly used or monitored. Other devices should be carefully watched as well, including gas furnaces, stoves and water heaters, which can increase the risk of carbon monoxide if they malfunction.

As the weather gets colder, the Salinas Fire Department sees an increase in fires involving space heaters and candles every year. Fire officials say you should rely on your central heating system to stay warm, rather than a space heater, but if you have to, there are some precautions you can take to limit the fire risks.

They recommend keeping heaters at least 3 feet away from any flammable surfaces, like furniture, clothing and curtains.

“We have come across a couple fires where the clothing or the laundry actually caught on fire from the space heater being too close," Fire Inspector Sabrina Webb said.

If you have to use a space heater, the Salinas Fire Department also says only use one at a time. They require a lot of power and can cause an electrical fire.

“Our last fatal fire within the last year was actually due to an overloaded power strip so avoid using power strips or extension cords,” Webb said. “You really wanna plug them into your electrical outlet.”

Webb also recommends looking for space heaters that have a tip over safety switch, which turns off the unit if it falls over.

Make sure to change your smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector batteries at least twice a year.

Over in King City, a tragic example of how hazardous space heaters can be: a mobile home caught fire after a space heater malfunctioned.

Two-year-old Destiny Perez Duarte and one-year-old William Perez Duarte Jr. were killed in the fire. Five others were able to escape the blaze.

“My understanding is that the entire family was in the mobile home at the time asleep since it was late at night," King City's City Manager Steven Adams said. "The children were impacted the most because they were in the room where the fire started. There were a lot of flammable materials inside so it spread pretty rapidly.”

Investigators say there didn’t appear to be a functioning smoke alarm in the mobile home.

The fire is being investigated by the Monterey County Fire and Arson Task Force.