As cold weather starts to set in, Indian Hills Fire Rescue encourages residents to practice these home-heating safety tips to reduce fire risks while keeping your home and our community safe during the winter months. 

• Regularly inspect and maintain heating systems
• Keep flammable materials away from all heating equipment
• Install and maintain smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors
• Use space heaters properly and safely
• Avoid overloading circuits and outlets
• Keep fireplaces and chimneys safe and clean
• Properly store cooled ashes

As you stay warm and cozy this winter, BE FIRE SMART!  Understanding how to safely operate heating devices and implement winter fire safety measures is curcial.  Knowing what to do now is key to having a safe home.  For more details on these home heating safety tips and other winter fire safety tips, visit the links at the bottom of this page.

Heating equipment is one of the leading causes of home fire deaths. Fire departments responded to an estimated average of 44,210 fires involving heating equipment per year from 2016-2020, accounting for 13% of all reported home fires during this time, and these fires resulted in annual losses of 480 civilian deaths.

HEATING FIRE FACTS (Based on 2016-2020 annual averages)

• Space heaters were the type of heating equipment responsible for the largest shares of losses in home heating equipment fires, accounting for one-third of the fires, but nearly nine out of ten deaths and four out of five of the injuries in home fires caused by heating equipment. 
• Fires originating in a kitchen or cooking area accounted for the largest share of home heating fires (17%). 
• While the larger (non-confined) fires involving fireplaces or chimneys were involved in fewer than one in ten fires caused by heating equipment (7%), they caused just over one-fifth of the direct property damage (22%).
• Nearly half of the heating equipment fires (46%) occurred in the three-month period from December through February.

Source: NFPA Research Division