Seasonal & Situational Safety

Winter is the most dangerous time of year for home fires. Heating equipment is the second leading cause of house fires in the United States, and most heating fires happen between December and February.

Key winter fire safety steps:

• Space heaters. Keep them at least 3 feet from anything that can burn (curtains, furniture, bedding). Plug directly into a wall outlet, never an extension cord. Turn them off when you leave the room or go to sleep.
• Fireplaces and wood stoves. Have your chimney inspected and cleaned every year before heating season. Use a sturdy screen to catch sparks. Burn only dry, seasoned wood. Never treated lumber, cardboard, or trash. Let ashes cool completely before disposing of them in a metal container outside.
• Furnaces. Change your filter regularly and keep the area around your furnace clear. Have it serviced annually.
• Carbon monoxide. Install CO detectors on every level of your home, especially near bedrooms. Fuel-burning appliances (furnaces, fireplaces, generators, gas stoves) all produce CO. If your CO alarm sounds, get everyone outside and call 911.
• Candles. Never leave them unattended. Keep them away from anything flammable and out of reach of children and pets.

Test your smoke alarms and CO detectors at the start of every heating season.

The number one rule: never run a generator indoors or in an enclosed space. This includes garages, basements, crawl spaces, and sheds, even with the door open. Generators produce carbon monoxide (CO), an odorless, colorless gas that can kill in minutes.

Safe generator use:

• Location. Run the generator outside, at least 20 feet from your house, with the exhaust pointing away from all doors, windows, and vents. Homes with attached garages should be especially careful about CO drifting inside.
• Fuel. Turn the generator off and let it cool before refueling. Gasoline on a hot engine can ignite. Store fuel in an approved container, outside and away from living areas.
• Electrical. Plug appliances directly into the generator using heavy-duty outdoor-rated extension cords. Never plug a generator into a wall outlet ("backfeeding"). It can electrocute utility workers and start fires. If you want to power your home's circuits, hire an electrician to install a transfer switch.
• Carbon monoxide detectors. Make sure you have working CO detectors inside your home any time you're running a generator. If the alarm sounds, get outside immediately and call 911.

More people die from carbon monoxide poisoning during power outages than from the storms themselves. Take this seriously.

No. Never use an oven, stove, or grill to heat your home. It is one of the most dangerous things you can do during a winter power outage. Gas ovens, stoves and grills all produce carbon monoxide, and people die of it every winter doing exactly this. Electric ovens do not, but they aren't built to run continuously and can start a fire.

What to do instead, and why, is in the heating answers.

One thing worth knowing here: during an extended outage, Erie County and local organizations open warming centers. Check local news or call 211.

Pennsylvania has a real spring fire season, March through May, with a second stretch in October and November.

It comes down to what is lying on the ground before things green up. The trees are still bare, so the sun reaches the forest floor and dries out everything on it. Add the winds that come with spring and last year's dead grass, leaves and brush turn into a field of fuel.

What that means around McKean from March through May:

• Two of the three ingredients are already there. A wildfire needs fuel, dry conditions and a spark. In spring the fuel and the dryness are waiting. All that is missing is the spark.
• Wind carries it past the burn site. Embers are burning scraps of wood and vegetation, and the wind can carry them more than a mile. That is how a contained pile starts a field.
• Nearly all of these fires are started by people. Debris burning is the biggest single cause in the state.
• They start where people live. A lot of homes here back onto open fields, brush and woodlots, so a grass fire that gets away has somewhere to run and something to run into.

Once the canopy fills in and green growth returns, the window closes until fall. If you have burning to do, the middle of that window is the wrong time for it.

Start with the rules, because they're not the same on both sides of the line. Open burning rules are set locally, and they can differ from one address to the next. Under state law a local ordinance has to be at least as strict as the state regulations and can never be looser, so what your neighbor down the road is allowed to do may not be what you're allowed to do. Call the township or the borough and ask what the rules are where you live. PA DEP publishes a model open burning ordinance that local governments can use as a starting point.

There's no blanket statewide ban on open burning in Pennsylvania. What exists instead is a stack of rules, any one of which can shut you down.

Check all of these before you light it:

• A county burn ban. Erie County can put a temporary ban on open burning in place when conditions are dry, at the request of the district forest fire warden. It is temporary, and it covers open burning rather than your propane grill. Whether one is in effect right now, and what it covers, is on DCNR's burn ban page, which carries a county map.
• A statewide proclamation. The Governor can issue a proclamation prohibiting smoking of tobacco in any form and the building of campfires or burning of brush and other debris within woodlands or within 200 feet of woodlands. That covers a lot of ground around here.
• State forest land. DCNR prohibits fires in fire rings and fireplaces on state forest property from March 1 through May 25, and during periods of high fire danger. If you camp or hunt on state ground, treat that as a hard date.
• Your municipality. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' own instruction is to check with the township or the borough for burn bans and local rules before burning debris. Rules differ, and an ordinance can go as far as banning open burning outright.

If burning is allowed and you're going ahead:

• Wait for the right day. Not warm, not dry, not windy. In April that rules out a lot of otherwise pleasant afternoons. Wait for a still, damp one.
• Clear the site first. Rake the ground around the pile back to bare soil and get the leaves and loose brush away from it before you light anything.
• Have water and a rake within reach. A bucket or a charged hose, and something to beat out what gets past it. Within reach means at the fire, not in the barn.
• Keep it small and stay with it. Someone stays with it the entire time it is burning, not until it looks like it is dying down.
• Burn brush, not trash. State air quality rules apply no matter what your municipality allows. They bar burning tires, treated wood, shingles, demolition debris, furniture, and other trash, and they bar smoke that drifts off your property. DEP's model ordinance, which many municipalities have adopted, also keeps appliances, carpets, siding, insulation, mattresses, paint, and solvents off the pile. DEP recommends recycling or taking waste to a licensed landfill instead.
• Put it dead out. Water it until you can put a hand in the ash. DCNR sets that as the finishing test, and it's a different test from no visible flame, which a pile passes long before it's safe.

If it gets away from you, call 911 immediately. See what to do if a burn pile escapes.

Call 911 first. Before the hose, before you go find a shovel, and before you decide whether it's bad enough to bother anyone. Debris burning is the number one cause of wildfires in Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) puts the greatest danger in March, April, and May, and again in October and November, when cured grass and dry leaf litter are on the ground. If you knock it down before the trucks get there, good. Turning a crew around is easy. Getting one there late is not.

Pennsylvania treats this as a legal duty rather than a judgment call. If you know a fire is endangering somebody else's life or property, failing to call it in is a first-degree misdemeanor, and so is failing to take reasonable steps to control it when you could do that without putting yourself at real risk. That covers a fire you started lawfully, or one on property in your custody or control. The law doesn't ask you to stay and fight a fire that has gotten away from you.

In order:

• Call 911 and give the location. Road name and number, and the town. If the fire is on a back field or a private lane, say so and describe how to get in. See Rural Response for what makes a rural address findable.
• Say what is burning and which way it's going. Grass, brush pile, or woods, and the direction the wind is pushing it. Tell the dispatcher what is downwind: house, barn, propane tank, standing timber, a neighbor's field.
• Get people and animals clear. Move them upwind and out of the smoke. Account for everyone before you do anything else.
• Move what moves easily. Vehicles, equipment, portable propane cylinders. Nothing that requires walking into smoke.
• Do not chase it. Once a fire is running with the wind, following it with a garden hose accomplishes nothing and puts you between the fire and whatever it reaches next. If you work anything, work the edge closest to a building, and only while you have a clear way out behind you.
• Open the gate and be visible. Unlock gates, pull vehicles off the lane so an engine can get down it, and stand where you can be seen from the road. Tell the crew where the pile was, what was in it, and whether there's a pond, creek, or hydrant nearby.

Do not call back to cancel because the flames dropped. Fire holds in leaf litter and the packed layer underneath it after the visible flame is gone, and wind brings it back. Let the crew put it out and check it.

The fire that reaches a house in a Pennsylvania spring rarely arrives as a wall of flame. The National Fire Protection Association's wildfire research points to embers and small flames as the main way most homes ignite. Something within a few feet of the house catches, and the house catches from that. So the work that matters is close in, and late winter is when to do it, ahead of the March through May stretch. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) puts Pennsylvania's greatest wildfire danger in those spring months, and again in October and November.

The first 5 feet do the most work

• Nothing that burns against the walls. DCNR calls 0 to 5 feet the immediate zone and says to keep it free of anything that can burn, such as mulch, wood piles, or dry vegetation. NFPA recommends creating and maintaining 5 feet of noncombustible space around the outside of the building, and doesn't recommend shrubs or trees in that zone.
• Move the firewood. NFPA's first five feet out from the wall is meant to be a zone nothing can burn in. That means pulling back the mulch, the flammable plants, the leaf and needle litter and the woodpile.
• Clean the roof and gutters. NFPA puts dead leaves, debris and pine needles at the top of what catches an ember, and loose or missing shingles at the top of what lets one through. A gutter full of last year's leaves is an ember trap on top of your house.
• Look under the deck and the porch. Leaves and needles pack in there all winter. Same rule applies: if it's within 5 feet of the structure and it burns, get it out.

5 to 30 feet

• Break up the fuel. DCNR says to create space and breaks in your landscaping to slow a fire down. Continuous dry grass and brush running up to the house is what carries fire to it.
• Deal with the brush pile. A pile you haven't gotten around to burning is a heap of fuel sitting in the space you are trying to keep clear. Move it well away from the house or get rid of it.
• Cut last year's growth. Standing dead field grass against a building is exactly what carries fire to it. Knock it down before the dry weeks arrive.

30 to 100 feet

• Thin it. DCNR says to thin out trees and brush in the extended zone to reduce how quickly a fire could spread toward your home.

Two more that matter out here: keep the driveway clear enough and wide enough for a fire engine, and keep your address readable from the road in both directions. See Rural Response. None of the clearing above helps if the trucks can't find you or can't get in.

It's the single biggest one in your laundry room. The U.S. Fire Administration reports that failure to clean was the leading factor in home clothes dryer fires. The material that catches first is most often dust, fiber, or lint. Spring is when the heavy bedding and winter coats go through, which is exactly the load that sheds the most.

What to do:

• Lint filter: Clean it before or after every load, and pull out the lint that collects around the drum. Never run the dryer without the filter in place.
• Vent pipe: Clean the lint out of the exhaust duct once a year, or hire a dryer lint removal service to do it. Do it more often than yearly if you notice clothes taking longer than normal to dry.
• Outdoor vent flap: Go outside while the dryer is running and watch it. It should open. If it's blocked, crushed, or painted shut, the exhaust has nowhere to go.
• Duct material: Use rigid or flexible metal venting to hold proper air flow and drying time.
• Clearance: Keep the area around the dryer clear of boxes, cleaning supplies, and piled clothing.
• Anything with solvent on it: Clothes that have contacted gasoline, paint thinner, or a similar solvent go outside to dry first. Once dry, wash and dry them as usual. They don't go straight into the dryer.
• Gas dryers: Have a qualified professional inspect the gas line and connection to confirm they're intact and free of leaks.
• Leaving the house: Turn the dryer off when you go out or go to bed.

Drying time is the warning sign. If a load that used to take one cycle now takes two, the vent is restricted. Clean it then, rather than running the load twice.

What ignites is the vapor, not the liquid, and vapor travels away from the container. Rags are the other half of it. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) warns that rags left wet with oil-based paint, stain or varnish can ignite on their own, with no flame and nothing touching them. Both of those hazards belong to spring, when the gas cans come back out and the deck gets stained.

Storing it:

• Gasoline: Store it only in a container sold for gasoline, capped tight. Fill that container outdoors, with it sitting on the ground rather than in a truck bed. The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) says to store anything that can catch fire away from your home: for gasoline that means an outbuilding, a detached garage or a shed, not a basement and not the living space. Never use it as a cleaner or to cut grease.
• Paint, thinner, kerosene, stain: Keep them in their original containers with the labels on and the caps sealed. Never move them into glass, and never into a food container.
• Propane cylinders: Keep them upright. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says never use or store an LP gas cylinder indoors, and never store the spare under or near the grill.
• While you're working: No open flame and no smoking near these liquids. If you spill on your clothing, take it off and put it outside to dry before you launder it.

Rags used with oil-based paint, stain, or varnish:

• Never leave them in a pile, not even overnight. The oils release heat as they dry, and a pile traps that heat until it starts a fire. Water-based finishes don't do this.
• At the end of the day, take the rags outside. Hang them or spread them flat on the ground, weighted down so they can't blow away, not touching each other and away from buildings.
• Once they're dry, put them in a metal container with a tight cover and fill it with water and detergent to break down the oils. Keep that container somewhere cool, out of direct sunlight and away from other heat.

Getting rid of it: EPA classes leftover paints, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides as household hazardous waste. Do not pour them down the drain, onto the ground, or into a storm sewer, and in some cases they shouldn't go out with the regular trash either. EPA points you to a local household hazardous waste collection program: ask your local environmental, health, or solid waste agency what is collected near you, and ask your own municipality what it will take at the curb.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) notes that many gas grill accidents happen after a grill has been unused for a period of time, or right after its LP gas container has been refilled and reattached. That describes the first cookout of the year exactly. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) says to check the gas tank for leaks before you use a propane grill in the months ahead.

Before you light it:

• Leak test the connections: Mix one part water with one part liquid detergent. Open the gas supply valve fully and brush the solution onto the hose and every connection point. Bubbles mean a leak.
• If you find one: Turn off the gas, tighten the connection, and test again. If that doesn't stop the leak, close the container valve and take the grill to your LP gas dealer or a qualified appliance repair person. Do not attempt to light the grill until the leak has been repaired.
• Venturi tubes: These run from the control valves to the burners, and insects and spiders nest in them while the grill sits. Check for blockage from insects, spiders, or food grease and push it through into the burner with a pipe cleaner or a wire. CPSC calls the venturi tube a favorite nesting place while the grill sits through the winter, and puts this check before the season's first cookout.
• Hoses: Look for cracking, brittleness, holes, and leaks, and make sure there are no sharp bends. Keep hoses as far from the hot surface as they will go and out from under anywhere grease drips. If a hose can't be moved, have a heat shield installed.
• Grease: Clear the grease and fat buildup left in the grates and in the trays below from last season.

Once it's running:

• Make sure the lid is open before you light it. If the flame goes out, turn the grill and the gas off, open the lid, and wait at least 5 minutes before relighting.
• If you smell gas while cooking, get away from the grill and call 911. Do not move the grill.
• Have the cylinder refilled only by an LP gas dealer or a qualified service station operator, or use a cylinder exchange. Do not fill it yourself. Carry it upright and secured, and never leave a filled cylinder in a hot car or trunk.

For where the grill belongs and how far it needs to be from the house, see grilling safety.

Yes, and the worst combination is one most houses already have under the sink. EPA states plainly that you should never mix chlorine bleach solution with other cleaning solutions or detergents that contain ammonia, because toxic fumes could be produced. CDC puts it as a flat rule: household chlorine bleach can release chlorine gas if it is mixed with certain other cleaning products, so do not mix household cleaners. When chlorine gas reaches the moist tissue of your eyes, throat, and lungs it forms an acid that damages them.

How to stay out of it:

• One product at a time: Do not combine cleaners in a bucket, and don't spray a second product onto a surface still wet with the first. Rinse in between.
• Read the label for ammonia: Many glass cleaners and multi-surface sprays contain it without advertising it on the front of the bottle. Bleach is the one you have to check everything else against.
• Ventilate: EPA says to ventilate the area and exhaust the air to the outdoors when using disinfectants. Open a window and run a fan, especially in a bathroom or basement.
• Do not combine leftovers: EPA warns against mixing leftover household chemicals for storage or disposal, because incompatible products can react, ignite, or explode.

If you have already mixed something and the air burns:

• Get out of the room and get to fresh air. Open windows and doors on your way out to let fresh air in, and stay out until the gas has gone. Do not go back in to move the bucket.
• If your eyes are burning or you can't see normally, wash them with lukewarm water for 10 to 15 minutes. Do not use eye drops. If you wear contact lenses, take them out and don't put them back in.
• If you can, get out of the affected clothing and wash with soap and water.
• Call the Poison Help Line at 1-800-222-1222. Call 911 instead if anyone is struggling to breathe, is confused, or has collapsed.

Gas grills start thousands of home fires a year, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Most of them are preventable.

Grilling safety basics:

• Location. Grill outside only, well away from the house and the deck railings, and out from under eaves and overhanging branches. Never grill in a garage, on a covered porch, or inside any structure.
• Stay present. Don't leave a lit grill unattended. Keep children and pets at least 3 feet away.
• Grease. Clean the grease trap regularly. Built-up grease is a common cause of grill fires. If grease catches fire, close the lid and turn off the burners. Don't spray water on a grease fire.
• Propane grills. Check the gas line connections for leaks at the start of every season (brush soapy water on the connections and look for bubbles). If you smell gas while cooking, move away from the grill and call 911.
• Charcoal grills. Use only charcoal starter fluid, and only before lighting. Never add fluid to burning coals. Let coals cool completely before disposing of them: soak with water and place in a metal container.

Keep a fire extinguisher nearby when grilling. If a grill fire gets out of control, move away from it and call 911.

The safest choice is to attend a professional fireworks display rather than using consumer fireworks at home. Professional shows are run by licensed pyrotechnicians with fire safety equipment on standby.

In Pennsylvania, consumer fireworks (including aerial fireworks and firecrackers) are legal for adults 18 and older. If you choose to use them:

• Legal rules. Consumer fireworks cannot be set off within 150 feet of a building or vehicle, including your own, or by anyone under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Municipalities can restrict the hours on top of that, so check with the township or the borough.
• Setup. Use fireworks outdoors on a flat, hard surface away from dry grass, buildings, vehicles, and overhead wires. Have a bucket of water, a garden hose, or a fire extinguisher ready.
• Lighting. Light one at a time, then move back quickly. Never lean over a firework while lighting it. If a firework doesn't go off, don't approach it. Wait at least 20 minutes, then soak it in water.
• After use. Soak all spent fireworks in a bucket of water before throwing them away. Hot debris in a trash can has started many fires.
• Children. Sparklers burn hot enough to melt metal. They are not toys. Young children should not handle them, and older children need watching.

Fireworks start tens of thousands of fires a year and send thousands of people to the emergency room. If something goes wrong, call 911.

While large-scale wildfires are less common in northwestern Pennsylvania than in the western U.S., brush fires and grass fires happen here regularly, especially in spring and fall when dead vegetation is dry.

Create defensible space around your home:

• First 5 feet from your house. Keep this area clear of dead leaves, mulch, firewood, and dry vegetation. Use gravel, stone, or paving directly against the foundation. This is the most critical zone.
• 5 to 30 feet. Mow grass regularly. Remove dead branches and brush piles. Space trees so their canopies don't overlap. Keep firewood stacks at least 30 feet from any structure.
• Gutters and roof. Clear leaves and pine needles from gutters, roof valleys, and around vents. Embers can land in gutters and ignite dry debris.

During dry conditions:

• Don't burn brush, trash, or leaves when it's windy or dry. Check whether a burn ban is in effect (contact the township or the borough, or PA DCNR).
• Use caution with lawn mowers and other equipment. A hot muffler or a spark from a blade hitting a rock can start a grass fire.
• Dispose of smoking materials properly. Never toss cigarettes on the ground.

If you see a brush fire that's spreading or threatening a structure, call 911 immediately. Don't try to fight it yourself with a garden hose. By the time it's spreading, it needs a real response.

Creosote is what wood smoke leaves behind when it cools. Smoke, water vapor, gases, unburned wood and tar fog rise out of the firebox into a flue that is cooler than the fire, condense on the walls, and harden into a black or brown residue: crusty and flaky, tar-like and sticky, or shiny and glazed. It burns readily. Enough of it in the flue, plus a hot enough fire, is a chimney fire.

Handle the chimney before the first fire of the season:

• Get it inspected once a year. The inspector checks that the structure is sound, how much has built up inside, and whether the clearances around it are still right. Sweeping and repair follow from what they find. Do it even if you barely burned anything last winter, because animals nest in unused flues and masonry falls apart on its own.
• Sweep by thickness, not by the calendar. An eighth of an inch of sooty buildup is enough to want it swept, and sooner if any of it has gone glazed. The inspection tells you where you stand; the sweeping happens when the deposits are actually there.
• Use a qualified professional. Chemical creosote removers on their own are not a substitute. They do nothing about a cracked liner or a blocked flue, and the inspection is what finds those.
• Burn so you make less of it. Three things make creosote build faster: starving the fire of air, burning wood that has not dried out, and running the flue cooler than it should be. Dry seasoned wood and a hot, well-fed fire leave less behind.
• Ask about blockages and the cap while they are there. Mortar shaken loose from the chimney walls, bird nests and debris all block the flue, and a blocked flue sends the exhaust back into the house. Carbon monoxide with it.

If you are putting in a wood stove or a fireplace insert, permits and inspections are handled locally, and neighboring municipalities often do it differently. Call yours before the work starts. Once the chimney is ready, see what fire safety precautions to take in winter.

Yes, and fall is the time to do it. Heating equipment runs hard for months after sitting untouched all summer. Heating equipment is behind a large share of home fires every year, and the U.S. Fire Administration put it second among the causes. Service that happens in January usually happens because something already went wrong.

Book the service before the first hard cold night:

• Every fuel-burning appliance, every year. The furnace, the water heater, and anything else running on gas, oil or coal. The water heater is the one people forget, because it runs year round and never draws attention to itself.
• Tell the technician to check the venting. Chimneys and flues are not normally part of a heating service, so ask for them. They are looking for blockages, corrosion, disconnected or loose joints, and rust or cracks that would let exhaust into the house. Birds and insects nest in vents, and a blocked vent pushes the exhaust back inside, carbon monoxide included.
• Have new equipment installed by a professional. CPSC says appliances should be installed and operated according to the manufacturer's instructions and local building codes, and that most of them should be installed by qualified professionals.
• Clear three feet around it. USFA puts it at three feet: keep anything that can burn at least three feet from all heat sources, fireplaces, wood stoves, radiators, space heaters and candles alike. CPSC gives the same number for portable heaters. In a basement or utility room that usually means moving stored boxes, paint and laundry away from the furnace.
• Do the alarms on the same trip. Test every smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm in the house while you're thinking about it. See also smoke alarm placement and testing.

Once the system is serviced, the winter precautions cover running it safely through the season.

The U.S. Fire Administration reports that portable heaters cause a small share of home heating fires but a disproportionate share of the fatal ones. Widen it to all space heaters and heating stoves and the National Fire Protection Association puts them behind a large share of the fires and the great majority of the deaths and injuries. Five minutes of checking is worth it.

Before the heater goes back on the floor:

• Inspect the heater, cord and plug for damage. Never operate a heater you suspect is damaged, and follow the operation and maintenance instructions that came with it.
• Look up recalls. Search the model at cpsc.gov/Recalls or SaferProducts.gov. Heaters get recalled for fire and burn hazards regularly, and a heater that has been in a closet for a year won't have told you.
• Look for a safety certification mark from an independent testing lab on the heater itself.
• Plug it straight into a wall outlet. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is blunt about this one: never into an extension cord or a power strip, because that is how you overload a circuit and start a fire. The plug should fit tightly in the outlet; if it doesn't, don't use that outlet for the heater.
• Feel the plug and outlet while it runs. If the plug, outlet or faceplate gets hot, stop using the heater and have an electrician check or replace the outlet. If the cord gets hot, unplug it and have the heater repaired by an authorized repair person.
• Give it three feet on every side. Not just in front of it. CPSC counts the sides and the back as well, which is the part people miss when they push a heater up against something. In a real room the things that drift into that three feet are a bedspread hanging off the mattress, a coat over the back of a chair, a stack of mail, or a curtain that moves every time the furnace kicks on.
• Put it on a stable, level surface where it won't be knocked over, and never run the cord under a rug or carpet, which damages the cord and can set it and nearby objects burning.
• Turn it off when you leave the room or go to bed. "Turn off heaters when sleeping" is CPSC's rule, stated without exceptions. Leaving one running in an empty room is our own advice, and the reason is the bullet above: what drifts into that three feet does it while nobody is watching.

If the heater burns fuel rather than electricity, use only the type of fuel the manufacturer specifies, and make sure your carbon monoxide alarms are working before you run it.

Carbon monoxide has no color and no smell, and heating season is when the appliances that produce it all start running again. CDC lists the common symptoms of CO poisoning as headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain and confusion, and notes they're often described as flu-like. The absence of fever is a clue that it's not the flu. People who are asleep or intoxicated can die from CO before they ever notice symptoms.

Get the alarms right before the furnace runs:

• Test every alarm and change the batteries. CDC recommends checking or replacing the battery when you change your clocks each spring and fall, and using a detector with battery backup.
• Check the age of the alarm itself. CDC says to replace your CO detector following the manufacturer's instructions or every five years. The date is usually printed on the back of the unit.
• Cover the whole house. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says to put a CO alarm on each level of the home and outside sleeping areas, and to buy one certified by a recognized testing laboratory. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) puts it the same way, in a central location outside each sleeping area and on every level, and adds that interconnecting them is better still, so one sounding sets them all off. Two places CPSC says not to put one: a kitchen, and directly above a fuel-burning appliance. Attics and basements are out too, unless somebody sleeps there.
• Service what makes the gas. CPSC puts it plainly: an alarm "is no substitute for proper use and upkeep of appliances that can produce CO." The upkeep is the annual professional inspection of the fuel-burning systems, covered in the furnace service answer above.
• Know what you'll do when it sounds. CPSC is direct about it: never ignore an alarming CO alarm, and do not try to find the source. Move outside to fresh air and call 911. Get everyone out first and count heads outside.

If anyone in the house feels dizzy, light-headed or nauseated and you suspect CO, CPSC says to get outside to fresh air immediately and call the fire department from a neighbor's. Call 911 from outside the house. For running heat safely once the season is underway, see the winter precautions, and never use a generator or a grill indoors for heat.

Fall is one of Pennsylvania's two wildfire seasons. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (PA DCNR) reports that the greatest danger of wildfires in the state occurs in March, April and May, and again in October and November, that debris burning is the number one cause of wildfires in Pennsylvania, and that nearly all of them are caused by people.

Fall risk isn't spring risk. DCNR describes the spring driver as strong, dry wind moving over vegetation that hasn't greened up yet. In fall the driver is the leaves themselves: DCNR notes they pile up loose and deep rather than packing down, and that's what makes the layer dangerous. That layer carries fire sideways along the ground, under fences and into hedgerows, so a pile you thought was contained can walk away from you through the litter around it.

Before you light anything:

• Ask your own municipality. Open burning rules in Pennsylvania are set locally. PA DEP publishes a model open burning ordinance that local governments can adopt, which means what is allowed changes from one municipality to the next. Rules can differ from one address to the next, so the answer for your neighbor may not be the answer for you. Call the township or the borough, whichever covers yours.
• Check for a burn ban. In Pennsylvania, a county burn ban is put in place at the request of a district fire warden after the county's fire chiefs recommend it, and runs up to 30 days with a possible 30 day extension by the county commissioners. State agencies can ban burning on state forest, park and game lands, and a statewide ban comes by proclamation from the Governor. DCNR publishes a county burn ban map.
• Check the fire weather. The National Weather Service issues a Fire Weather Watch when conditions that could produce dangerous fire behavior may develop, and a Red Flag Warning when those conditions are occurring or about to occur. It takes low relative humidity, strong wind and dry fuels together. Do not burn under either one.
• Never burn household trash. PA DEP cites an EPA report finding that a single household burn barrel may emit as much toxic chemical pollution as a well controlled municipal incinerator.

Composting the leaves or hauling them to a yard waste site takes the risk to zero. If a fire you started gets into the surrounding leaf litter and starts moving, call 911 immediately. For the general rules on open burning, see burning and fire pits.

Fire pit season and leaf season overlap. The pit hasn't changed; what surrounds it has. Dry leaves collect against the pit, in the lawn, in the gutters and along fence lines, so a spark that would have died on green grass in July now has somewhere to land and smolder.

Set it up right:

• Distance. The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) says to use fire pits, chimneys and outdoor fireplaces outdoors and at least 10 feet from your home or anything that can burn. A campfire needs more room: at least 25 feet from tents, shrubs and anything that can burn.
• Clear the ground first. Rake leaves and dry grass well back from the pit before you light it, and move the pile you raked away from the fire rather than beside it.
• Put a screen on it. USFA recommends a metal screen over wood burning fires to keep sparks from floating out. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) puts embers and small flames at the front of how most homes ignite in a wildfire. Embers are burning pieces of airborne wood or vegetation, and NFPA says the wind can carry them more than a mile to start spot fires.
• Clean the gutters and roof. Leaves in a gutter or a roof valley are the exact fuel bed an ember is looking for. Clear them before you start using the pit regularly.
• Do not light it under a warning. No fire pit during a county burn ban or a National Weather Service Red Flag Warning. A Red Flag Warning means critical fire weather is already occurring or is expected within the next 24 hours.
• Watch the kids. USFA says to closely watch children when the fire pit is in use, and to store matches and lighters out of children's sight and reach.
• Put it out before you go in. USFA allows no version of this where the fire is still alive when you're not. Not banked for later, not left to burn itself down. Out, before you go indoors.
• Handle the ashes. Let the ashes and coals cool completely, then put them in a metal can with a lid and keep that can outside, away from the house and any other building.

Whether a recreational fire is allowed on your property, and under what conditions, is a local question. Local rules vary, so ask the township or the borough, whichever covers your address. See also burning and fire pits.

Decorations are what catches. Halloween is the night that puts loose fabric, dried plant material and an open flame within a few feet of each other, usually at a doorway, usually after dark. A candle is behind about a third of decoration fires.

Costumes

• Trailing fabric. The costume that catches is the one that drags or swings, because the child wearing it can't see the hem and isn't watching what the sleeve passes over. If a part of the costume moves when the child does, and the child can't see it move, that's the part to shorten.
• Look for the flame resistant label. On the costume and on masks, beards and wigs. It is not a promise the material won't burn. It means it resists catching and should go out quickly once it does. Sewing your own? Nylon and polyester give you much the same thing. Anything burns if it sits in a flame.
• Cut the eye holes big. A child in a mask has to be able to see where they're walking, and one who can't see walks into things, candles included.
• Give them something to see by. A flashlight in hand, or a glow stick worn as part of the costume. Either one also makes the child easier for a driver to pick out.
• Stop, drop and roll. Worth practicing before the night rather than explaining during it. Stop moving, get down, cover the face, and roll until the flames are out.

Decorations and jack-o-lanterns

• Dried material goes up fast. A straw bale, a corn shock, a dried arrangement, anything paper: all of it takes a flame quicker than people expect, and all of it ends up on a porch in October within reach of a lit pumpkin. Watch the heat that's not a flame too. A porch light, a bulb inside a display and a heater by the door are all hot enough on their own.
• Use a battery candle. NFPA and CPSC both prefer a glow stick or a battery light inside a jack-o-lantern. If it's going to be a real flame, light it with a long fireplace match or a utility lighter, and don't leave children alone in a room where one is burning.
• Keep lit pumpkins off the path. A pumpkin on a doorstep or beside a walkway sits at costume height, which is the whole problem. Put it where nothing can brush against it and nothing near it can burn.
• Do not decorate the way out. Cobwebs strung across a doorway, a display on the porch steps, a run of lights down a hallway: all of it is standing in the escape route. See escape planning.
• Test the smoke alarms. NFPA puts this on the Halloween list for the same reason it's on every other list. See smoke alarms and CO detectors.

If you're the one decorating, NFPA's line is to keep exits clear so nothing blocks an escape route. If your kids are going to a party at somebody else's house, our own advice is worth passing along: have them find the ways out when they arrive, before the room fills up.

Fall is when to sort out the generator. Doing it in the dark during an ice storm is how people get hurt. The hazard is carbon monoxide, which you can't see or smell. A running generator puts out enough of it to kill somebody in minutes, and portable generators account for a large share of the CO deaths that happen every year.

Do this now, before the first outage:

• Pick the spot in daylight. Never inside a home, a basement or a garage, and never closer than 20 feet to a window, door or vent. Outside, 20 feet out, exhaust pointed away from your house and away from anything else somebody can walk into. Walk the yard now and decide where that is.
• Opening a window doesn't fix it. Ventilating a space does not keep the carbon monoxide in it below a level that kills. An open garage door doesn't help either. A generator does not run in a garage.
• Buy the right cord. Heavy duty, rated for outdoor use, sized for the total load, and long enough to reach the spot you picked.
• Check your CO alarms. One outside each sleeping area and one on every level. Test them at the start of heating season along with your smoke alarms.
• If you're buying one, look for CO shutoff. CPSC has proposed requiring an automatic carbon monoxide shutoff on portable generators. CPSC modeled it against hundreds of real generator deaths and found a compliant shutoff would have prevented nearly all of them. The standards are voluntary and plenty of generators on sale meet neither, so check the box. Either way it still runs outside, 20 feet out, with the exhaust pointed away from the house.
• Fuel it cold. Never top up a running generator. USFA's reason is the obvious one: gasoline going onto a hot engine is how a refueling stop becomes a fire. Shut it down and give it time to cool.
• Keep it dry. Ready.gov says to keep the generator dry and protected from rain or flooding, because touching a wet generator, or anything connected to one, can shock you.
• Clear the vents. Dryer, furnace, stove and fireplace all vent to the outside, and USFA wants those outlets kept open through the winter. Drifted snow over one pushes the exhaust back indoors, generator or no generator.

If a CO alarm sounds, get everyone outside into fresh air and call 911. For the rest of the generator rules, including why you must never plug one into a wall outlet, see winter safety.

House fires spike between Thanksgiving and New Year's. The biggest holiday-specific hazards are cooking, candles, and Christmas trees.

Cooking

• Thanksgiving is the single worst day of the year for cooking fires. Never leave a turkey fryer, oven, or stove unattended.
• If you're deep-frying a turkey: do it outside, on a flat surface, away from the house. Make sure the turkey is completely thawed, ice in hot oil causes explosive boilovers. Never overfill the fryer.

Christmas trees

• A dry Christmas tree can go from a small flame to fully engulfed in under 30 seconds. Water your tree daily. If needles are falling off and it feels dry, take it down, don't wait until after the holiday.
• Keep the tree at least 3 feet from heat sources (fireplaces, radiators, space heaters, heat vents).
• Use lights rated for indoor use. Inspect them for frayed wires or broken sockets. Turn off tree lights when you go to sleep or leave the house.

Candles

• December is the peak month for candle fires. Keep candles away from decorations, wrapping paper, and curtains. Use sturdy holders. Never leave them burning in an unoccupied room.
• Consider battery-operated flameless candles. They look realistic and present zero fire risk.

Decorations

• Don't overload electrical outlets. Use power strips with built-in overload protection.
• Keep wrapping paper, bows, and cardboard away from fireplaces and heat sources. Wrapping paper burns extremely fast and hot.

Northwestern Pennsylvania gets severe thunderstorms, high winds, ice storms, and heavy snow, any of which can knock out power, bring down trees, and create dangerous conditions.

Before storm season:

• Emergency kit. Water (one gallon per person per day for at least 3 days), non-perishable food, flashlights, batteries, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio, a first aid kit, medications, and phone chargers. See our Emergency Preparedness section for a full list.
• Communication plan. Make sure everyone in your household knows where to meet and who to contact if you get separated.
• Know your home. Identify the safest room for a tornado warning (interior room on the lowest floor, away from windows). Know where your utility shutoffs are (gas, water, electric).

During a severe weather warning:

• Tornado warning. Go to your safe room immediately. Bring your phone. Cover yourself with a mattress or heavy blankets to protect from debris.
• Thunderstorm with high winds. Stay indoors, away from windows. Unplug sensitive electronics. Don't use corded phones.
• Power outage. Use flashlights, not candles. Never run a generator indoors (see our generator safety answer). Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed to preserve food.
• Flooding. Never drive through standing water. Six inches of fast-moving water can knock you down. One foot can carry away a vehicle. Turn around, don't drown.

Sign up for Erie County Alert, the county's emergency notification system, at eriecountypa.genasys.com. It sends severe weather warnings straight to your phone.

It depends on where you live and what you're burning. Open burning rules in Pennsylvania vary by municipality and can change during dry conditions.

Pennsylvania state rules (PA DEP):

• Do not burn household trash. Paper, plastic, food waste, and treated or painted wood all belong in the bin rather than a burn pile. PA DEP cites an EPA finding that one household burn barrel can put out as much toxic chemical as a well-controlled municipal incinerator. Whether it is permitted where you live is a question for the township or the borough.
• Leaves and brush. Some municipalities allow burning of natural yard waste (leaves, branches, brush) with restrictions. Others ban it entirely. Check with the township or the borough.
• Spring and fall are the risky seasons. DCNR may issue burn bans during dry periods, and restrictions apply on state forest land. See how to burn a brush pile safely for what to check before you light anything.

If burning is permitted in your area:

• Keep the fire small and manageable. Stay with it at all times.
• Have a garden hose or bucket of water ready to extinguish it.
• Don't burn on windy days. Embers can carry and start fires far from the burn pile.
• Clear the ground around it down to bare soil, and keep the first five feet out from any building free of anything that burns: mulch, wood piles, dry vegetation. Nothing overhead either, no branches or wires.
• Burn only dry, natural vegetation. Never burn rubber, plastic, chemicals, or construction materials.

Fire pits and recreational fires. Most municipalities allow small contained recreational fires (campfire-size) on your own property. They should be in a fire ring or pit, attended at all times, and fully extinguished with water when done.

If an outdoor fire gets out of control, call 911 immediately. Do not try to contain a spreading fire on your own.