Freezing temperatures turn up fires in the city

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

On paper, Chicago is gaining ground in the fight against fires. Chicago Fire Department officials report a steady decrease in the number of fires over the past last three years. Fire-related fatalities are also down: 43 deaths in 2006 compared with 32 in 2007.

The downward trend is continuing into 2008, with 146 fires reported so far this month, down from 161 in January 2007.

But winter in Chicago is always a dangerous season for fires.

"The number of fires has been decreasing," said Fire Department spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez. "This is shown in our fatalities. But in January we always have more."

Space heaters, candles, stoves and electrical cords rank highest among the causes of confirmed fires in residential and commercial buildings this month, said fire officials.

"The colder it gets, the worse it gets for us," said Firefighter Richard Rosado. "When it's extremely cold like this, people turn to alternative forms of heat. And they become careless."

The degree of carelessness varies, according to firefighters.

Chief Joe Roccasalva, who heads Chicago's Fire Prevention Bureau, recalls a family that used a torch to thaw freezing pipes in their home. But space heaters and stoves cause the most problems, he said.

"It's not that we don't like the use of space heaters," Roccasalva said. "It's when people don't use them properly that we have a problem. Then there are those who can't afford space heaters, so they use stoves. That's a no-no."

Roccasalva mentioned the danger of a stove's open flame but also said it could be a source of the silent killer, carbon monoxide poisoning.

The odorless, tasteless substance can be excreted from burners left on for hours at a time. So far this year, there have been no carbon monoxide-related deaths in Chicago, and fire officials have seen an increase of working carbon-monoxide detectors. But the upkeep of smoke detectors has declined.

"Last year we found that more than half of fire fatalities [involved non-working] smoke alarms," Rodriguez said.

Firefighter Michael Anthony Scudieri, who works in Engine 49 in West Town, said that most of the fires his unit has responded to this month were in buildings without working smoke detectors.

"Usually,'' he said, "we find that [batteries are] "inoperable or there's none at all."

The city has had two fire fatalities so far this year--a 72-year-old man and a 22-month-old toddler.

The day care center where the toddler died on Jan. 16 had a working smoke detector. But children are espeically vulnerable because they don't know how to respond when a fire breaks out.

"We really need to teach them things like, what to do in the case of a fire--like not to go into a closet and hide," Rodriguez said.

The toddler who died had hidden in a coat closet to escape the fire.

Officials report cases of children's clothing catching fire because they were too close to open flames or space heaters.

Roccasalva said that parents need to be more careful when there's a space heater in the home.

"You can't leave children around space heaters," he said. "They don't know any better."

Rodriguez said the fire department will continue to visit schools and talk about fire prevention in terms that children can understand. In the meantime, fire officialsare bracing for an end-of-the month surge and working hard to avert infernos caused by carelessness.

"It's going to get colder in the next couple days," Roccasalva said. "So, we're going to see a couple."

Here are tips from fire prevention experts on how to avoid the most common causes of winter fires.

· Make sure that space heaters are at least 36 inches from combustible material.

· Do not place coats, blankets or clothing on space heaters

· Turn space heaters off when leaving the house. Turn them down when sleeping

· Blow out candles before leaving the house or going to bed

· Try hair dryers instead of torches to thaw frozen pipes

· Check your smoke alarm battery at least once a year.

· Check heating units for built-up material that could lead to clogging and explosions

· Make an escape plan for your family and practice it often with your children.