Firefighters deal with spike in CO calls during cold snap

The season's first cold snap and snowfall are often blamed for shoveling injuries, bruised back sides and auto accidents. But there's a more prevalent call to local fire departments since Wednesday night's arctic blast.

The most common calls during winter's first cold snap tend to be for carbon monoxide detectors triggered by a variety of seasonal factors: furnaces being fired up for the first time; gas fireplaces being run without proper ventilation and the occasional driver who thinks it's safe to warm up the car while it's still in an attached garage.

With furnaces, amount of the deadly gas that is expelled usually is not enough to harm anyone. But you can't be too careful.

"There is a bona fide carbon monoxide leak sometimes and those detectors serve as not only a warning but a reminder to get the furnace checked," Naperville Fire Chief Mark Pukinaitis said. "And I would hope everybody does that so they don't run into that fatal situation."

Ralph Mufich, co-owner of Batavia's Comfort Care Heating and Air Conditioning, said homeowners can typically avoid any carbon monoxide problems by having the furnace cleaned and inspected in the fall before the first use of the season.

"The furnace is usually the single hardest-working appliance in the home," he said. "It's not uncommon for the typical furnace to cycle on and off 9,000 times per season, so you want to ensure the integrity of the heat exchanger and keep it free of dirt and soot."

Carbon monoxide can be deadly because it attaches to the body's hemoglobin significantly more than oxygen does, ultimately rendering you unconscious.

Symptoms often include dizziness, upset stomach and headaches. But you should never let the situation get that far if your state-required carbon monoxide detector is triggered.

"If the alarm activates, call us and let us determine if it's a serious issue because you can never be too safe with something you can't hear, see or smell," Wood Dale Lt. Thomas Knight said. "We go in with our own meters, which are a bit more sensitive than the ones in the typical home, and they help us determine pretty quickly if you have a leak in your home or if it's just a false alarm."

Aurora will make several hundred calls of this type throughout the season.

"Every once in a while we find a cracked pipe or a damaged heat exchanger," said Deputy Fire Chief John Lehman. "But most of the time, the calls are just a result of the advanced detection technology that we have and the fact that nearly every major appliance generates amounts of this gas."

The most avoidable way to keep lethal amounts of the gas out of the home, however, is to never attempt to warm up your car in an enclosed, or attached garage.

"You may think you have enough time to get in the car and open the garage door," Pukinaitis. "But you're really taking quite a chance of doing that, and it's not advised, no matter how cold it is, to run the car indoors anywhere."

Staff Writer Melissa Jenco contributed to this report.