Hi, I'm Catherine Breault
with Eastside Fire and Rescue, I'm their public information officer.
And today, we're going to talk a little bit about generator safety.
We all encounter bad weather we have from October till March,
sometimes storms that roll through our area and affect our power.
So a lot of us have these portable generators in our house
and we want to learn how to use them in a safe and effective way
that doesn't increase our chances for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Carbon monoxide poisoning is a deadly gas.
It can be something that builds up in your home.
And when using a generator, we never want to use them inside,
inside a shed, garage or any other type of environment.
Carbon monoxide actually builds up incredibly fast when using a generator,
and today we're going to demonstrate that for you.
So as you can see, we are not that far from our portable generator
and the carbon monoxide levels got dangerous within a minute.
So if your particle generator is located anywhere near your home or somewhere
that's not properly ventilated, you can experience those signs
and symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning fairly quickly.
We want to look for dizziness, loss of consciousness, fatigue, vomiting.
Any of those signs and symptoms we want to get out of the house immediately.
If you're using a portable generator, always make sure it's far enough away
from any type of open window door that it's safe to use.
We recommend about 15 feet always have a carbon monoxide detector in your home.
We go to calls this time of year
all the time for people with carbon monoxide poisoning.
They're just like smoke detectors that need to be installed correctly
with battery backup, and they need to be checked annually.
So we want to make sure those are up and running
because not only do portable generators off put carbon monoxide,
but we can also experience carbon monoxide from things like our ovens
or our gas fireplaces or other appliances in our home.
So we always want to have those checked annually and especially this time of year.