Keeping doors shut throughout your home can make the difference between losing a room in your home and losing everything in a fire.

According to the Firefighter Safety Research Institute closing the door can slow the fire, decrease heat and smoke in the rest of the home, and increase escape times. Ainsworth Fire Chief Waylon Schultz has seen this in action, “We did recently have a fire in Riverside, the home owner was away and out of town but had all his doors shut inside the house to all the rooms, and it really did keep the fire from the whole house and pretty much contained the fire to just that one room. It was kind of unbelievable to us how it held that much fire inside that one room without spreading to the rest of the house.”

This time of year is particularly dangerous for home fires with the various means people use to heat their homes. According to the National Fire Protection Association from 2009 to 2013, U.S. fire departments responded to 56,000 home structure fires that involved heating equipment, 49% of those coming in December, January, and February.