The Associated Press: Recession, fires: double trouble for the Red Cross

...And recent months have taxed many local chapters with an unusually high number of house fires, often linked to unorthodox heating methods used by financially ailing families as bitter cold enveloped much of the country.

House fires account for the vast majority of the roughly 71,000 local disasters that the Red Cross responds to annually. No chapter, no matter how low its financial reserves, wants to cut back on the assistance routinely offered to families made homeless by such fires — temporary lodging, clothing, rent money and other essentials.

Note that our new President wants to make home heating vastly more expensive in an attempt to make the bitter cold outside just a tad more bitter.