A couple of PSAs:
1) If you smell something while you're running a portable heater, *investigate it*. Note: do not assume the trouble is in the immediate vicinity of the heater. This outlet was about four meters away, in another room -- but on the same circuit, and electrically upstream of where the heater was plugged in.
2) If you have an older house, consider replacing the first outlet on the circuit with an AFCI model, on any circuit supplying bedrooms. (I believe newer houses have AFCIs at the breaker panel, but I don't know when the code was changed -- after 1981, anyway).
1) If you smell something while you're running a portable heater, *investigate it*. Note: do not assume the trouble is in the immediate vicinity of the heater. This outlet was about four meters away, in another room -- but on the same circuit, and electrically upstream of where the heater was plugged in.
2) If you have an older house, consider replacing the first outlet on the circuit with an AFCI model, on any circuit supplying bedrooms. (I believe newer houses have AFCIs at the breaker panel, but I don't know when the code was changed -- after 1981, anyway).