Use common sense when warming up with a space heater

MOSES LAKE — Winter weather has come to the Basin, which means a lot of people will be looking for ways to keep warm. Space heaters can be a useful, portable way to heat up a room, but you have to be careful with them and the fire risks they present. “Maintain space between the heater and any combustible object: clothes, blankets, anything that could catch fire,” said Moses Lake firefighter Seth Ellis. One in six residential fires on average are caused by heating equipment, according to the National Fire Prevention Association. Of those, about a third are caused by space heaters, but those fires result in 88% of civilian deaths and 80% of civilian injuries from heating-related fires. The number of fires caused by heaters has dropped from more than 70,000 annually to about 40,000, largely due to safety features like switches to shut the device off when it tips over.