It’s National Fire Prevention Week and as the fall season continues, there’s lots to prepare your home to prevent fires from happening.

Jefferson Fire Chief Jack Williams reminds homeowners with working chimneys and wood burning stoves to have them swept and cleared of creosote and debris. He advises to do preventative maintenance for those homes that have furnaces. 

“Just make sure the exhaust pipes are clear of any debris, leaves, tall grass, stuff like that. Make sure that you are changing your air filters in your furnace routinely, every probably 30 days I would change your air cleaners so that the dust doesn’t build up, causing another fire in your furnace because that’s probably one of our biggest causes of smoke damage in a house is just simply the air filter gets hot and starts filling house full of smoke.”

Williams also reminds everyone to not overload outlets and to use only one extension bar per outlet to reduce the possibility of a fire starting inside a home.