Each winter the high cost of home heating fuels and utilities causes many Americans to search for alternate sources of home heating. The use of wood burning stoves is growing and space heaters are selling rapidly. Fireplaces are burning wood and man-made logs. All these methods of heating may be acceptable. They are however, a major contributing factor in home fires. Many of these fires can be prevented.

Texas continues to suffer from unprecedented drought. Climate data show that the Lone Star State is in its driest ten-month period ever on record, in over a century of data.