Heating season starts now — expect the CO and flue calls to follow

Mid-October is when heating appliances come back into use after months idle. That shift reliably changes the calls you run. The hardware that has sat untouched since spring — furnaces, flues, space heaters, generators, gas and oil burners — comes on fast, often all in the same cold snap, and the faults that were invisible in summer surface at once.

Carbon monoxide is the one to watch. It is colourless and odourless, and the early presentation — headache, nausea, dizziness, confusion — reads like flu or a vague "feeling unwell" to the caller and sometimes to the first crew on scene. Treat a whole-household complaint, or symptoms that improve when people leave the building and return when they go back in, as a CO pattern until a meter says otherwise. Bring the detector in with you. Your own readings protect your crew as much as the occupants.

Flue and chimney fires rise with first use, especially where a wood or solid-fuel appliance was not swept over summer. Dispatch: a caller reporting "smoke smell" or a "roaring" from the chimney after lighting the first fire of the season is worth the same weight as a visible fire.

Generators and portable heaters move the risk indoors. Power interruptions in cold weather push people to run petrol generators in garages and to use unvented heaters in closed rooms. Both produce CO in an enclosed space.

For emergency managers and officers: this is the window to confirm detector messaging is out and that mutual-aid partners are staffed for the first sustained cold period, which historically clusters these calls.

None of this is a single forecast event. It is the seasonal baseline shifting under you. The practical takeaway for the shift: carry and use CO meters on medical calls that do not add up, weight chimney and appliance reports accordingly, and expect volume to spike on the first hard cold night rather than spread evenly.