 As cooler temperatures make their way into our region, space heaters may seem like a simple solution for those cold blistery days. However, if set up incorrectly, they could spell trouble for you and your home. Heater incidents, as far as the country, one out of every five fatalities, fire fatalities in the country, are related to heating. Heating-related incidents or heating appliances inside the home. One out of every seven fires in the country are related to heat-related appliances inside the home. According to 2018 data from the National Fire Protection Association, over 80% of fire-related deaths are due to fixed or portable space heaters, and over half of fire-related deaths were caused by having equipment set too close to combustible material. Pikeville Fire Department says to make sure heating equipment works properly. You want to make sure that it's been tested. You want to make sure that it has the UL listing or under-orders laboratories testing that's being conducted on it to make sure that it possibly is going to be pretty safe in your home. If it's an electrical heated appliance, then just making sure that you check the cords prior to plugging them up is making sure that the cords don't have any phrase or exposed wiring. Making sure that the ends, if they are grounded, make sure that it has the ground plug. That's in place for your safety. Along with checking your heater for operation, PFD recommends keeping heaters at least three feet away from combustible material and ensuring areas are well ventilated for fuel-based heaters. If we're going to plug it into the wall, I know that we have maybe two outlets, two plugs on an outlet. If we're using a heating appliance, just use one of those outlets. I know that if we have it, then we want to try to use it because I need to plug my phone up, or I just need to plug this up just for a moment, just to have power. But try to use those outlets with just one, utilize them in one plug that way that we don't possibly overload the circuits. Additionally, for heaters that use kerosene or natural gas, PFD says having a carbon monoxide detector could save your life as carbon monoxide is a silent killer. If you happen to have a carbon monoxide inside the atmosphere, the home, whenever you're fast asleep, you won't wake up to know it. That carbon monoxide detector saves lives, and we don't want to walk in or have to find someone that has went down to carbon monoxide. They'll let you know in the event that you need something looked at, or you may have a problem. Lastly, as poor weather is expected to hit our region, PFD says to make sure generators are left outside and are equipped with a transfer switch. Because if we don't have that transfer switch, we're using a generator inside the home, it can possibly backfeed power and potentially harm one of the electrical workers trying to get that power restored. We don't want to send power through the lines, so making sure that we have generators spaced from the home, not overloading the circuits or the appliances that we're trying to supply with those generators. A winter storm watch is in effect from late Saturday night into late Sunday night. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joel Korgel.