Joplin Fire Department reminds you to stay safe during this winter weather

Stay safe during this time of winter weather and extreme cold.

Dustin Lunow with the Joplin Fire Department tells Newstalk KZRG that burning candles can turn into house fires:

“But any open flame has that ability to spread, if not left checked. Like, just as simple as, oh say, I need to run to the store real quick, and you take off and you leave, you know, your candles burning or something of that nature. Or to be really honest, they don't need to be burning in a room you're not in.”

When the weather turns cold, some portable electric heaters are put into use.

How safe are those?

According to Dustin Lunow:

“Those little electric heaters are deceiving, powerful. They pull a lot, a lot of power. And those are supposed to be plugged directly into a wall. You're not supposed to use an extension cord. You're definitely not supposed to use a power strip. It'll overload that. What happens is the cord actually begins to heat. It'll heat to a point where it just auto ignites. So it shorts out, it starts a fire. That's actually a very common thing.”