With winter fast approaching and the cost of heating homes expected to rise, many area residents may be turning to space heaters to augment their regular heating system.
The National Fire Protection Association has suggestions for using space heaters safely.
They recommend purchasing a heater with the seal of an approved laboratory, keeping it at least three feet away from combustibles, placing it on a solid, flat surface, and plugging it directly into a wall outlet, not an extension cord.
Statistics show that two in five deaths in space heater fires involve portable electric heaters