OKC Fire Department Shares Winter Weather Tips Ahead Of Weekend Snowstorm

The Oklahoma City Fire Department is sharing crucial winter weather tips as the state is expected to experience blizzard-like conditions over the weekend.

EMSA has already answered 390 weather-related calls this week and the fire department is helping with many of those wrecks and falls. It has been a long week, but we are far from the worst of it. They're asking for you to do your part.

For your house they give these tips:

1. Keep our phones fully charged.
2. Have extra food and water.
3. Plug space heaters directly into the wall, not through an extension cord.
4. Do not use your stove as a heater.
5. Remember to put out fires, candles and turn off space heaters before you go to sleep.

And if you are starting a fire in your fireplace, make sure your chimney is cleaned and do not reach for just the nearest wood, especially not the wood from the historic October ice storm.

"That wood is still too green to throw into your fireplace. That stuff needs to age at least nine months, preferably a year," said Louis Marschik, OKC Fire Department Major. "That becomes a fire hazard." 

If they are called out, firefighters will likely respond more slowly because of slick road conditions.

They ask you to check on the seniors in your life in case of accidents like a fall, which happen all too often in these winter conditions.