Not all of the poor are eligible for energy assistance, by the way.
Since the start of this year, at least eight people in Detroit have died in fires that occurred in houses where the heat and electricity had been shut off by DTE Energy, the local utility provider. The residents of these homes were too poor to pay for these services. They were forced to turn to unsafe methods in order to try to stay warm as temperatures dropped, and they paid for this with their lives.
There is a clear link between utility shutoffs and house fires, particularly in the wintertime. It is driven by the fact that people resort to electric and kerosene space heaters once they have lost the use of their central heating systems, or turn to candles for illumination when their electricity has been disconnected.
It is a well-established fact that using space heaters increases the risk of fire death. According to a report by the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) released earlier this year, in the period from 2003 to 2007, nationwide 72 percent of home heating fire deaths and 62 percent of home heating injuries “involved stationary or portable space heaters.”
The risk of death posed by using space heaters is 18 to 25 times higher than that associated with central heating systems. Additionally, those heaters that rely on gas, the report notes, “pose a higher risk of death due to non-fire carbon monoxide poisoning.”
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