As temperatures fall, furnaces fire up. Here's how to keep your home warm and safe.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - With the overnight temperatures dipping into the 40s this weekend, furnaces and space heaters are certainly going to be fired up.

That said, with a couple of days before the big dip, you've got a chance to head off any potential problems in your home.

The numbers from the National Fire Protection Association are sobering - 50,000 home fires per year, 500 deaths - all from home heating elements.

As the temperatures fall, the thermostats get cranked up but before that happens, make sure the furnace is ready and that doesn't mean just sticking the hose from the vacuum cleaner in there.

"You hit a wire on a relay or you hit a wire on a sensor and that furnace might not even come on," explained Rocco Florio of Air Pro Heating and Cooling.

Florio said what you need to do is much more basic and it begins with replacing your filter.

"Let's say the furnace filter is really dirty and you've used it all summer because of the heat we've had - that furnace filter could actually be taken into the blower compartment," he explained.

That can cause fire and lots of smoke. In addition to that, Florio is reminding you to check your thermostat.

"Normally, you don't want to be at 75 in heating mode," he said. "A lot of people like to be at 68, 70. So, you've got to make sure you change it from cooling to heating."

Make that change and test it to make sure the furnace comes on and heats now before you need it.

If you're planning to pull out the space heater, make sure it is nowhere near anything that could catch fire.

He also said to take a look around the furnace because things tend to get shoved up against it over the summer. So before you get it running this fall and winter, make sure it's free of anything that could be combustible.

Finally, Florio said it's important to get your furnace checked professionally every two years but the filter should be changed twice a year. That can be done by anyone and they are not expensive.