If you have a wood-burning stove, do you have enough dry wood, including kindling, to last for several days? And are members of your family skilled enough at building a fire that they don't fill the house with smoke in the process?

When was your chimney last cleaned? Creosote build-up is a potential fire hazard.

If you have a generator, do you know how to safely use it and do you have enough fuel stored safely away from combustibles?

Even fuel that's stored properly can be a fire hazard. "Kerosene heaters were very popular a few years ago, when people were preparing for Y2K," said Gary Wise. "We ended up having major problems because people had 55-gallon drums in their garage that was a main source of fuel when the garage caught fire. Any time you use a flammable liquid, you have to be extra careful."

The level of preparedness of Utahns who lived through the prolonged day-after Christmas outage was put to the test. We asked a few people who were without power how they managed and whether they would do anything differently.

• Jean Davis, 84, and her son, Bob, whose power was out for more than 60 hours, used an oil lamp and flashlights for light. They have rechargeable flashlights plugged into outlets throughout their Cottonwood Heights home. They ate cold food except for the one meal they had at a restaurant. Jean has a 72-hour emergency kit with a battery-operated/wind-up radio and light.

Their home has a wood-burning stove but they weren't able to use it at first because their firewood was wet. Bob set some on the patio to dry and they started a fire later.

They're thinking of buying a small propane stove they could use to cook on outdoors in the event of an extended power outage in the future. And next time they won't open their freezer door. "We were concerned about our frozen food," Jean said. "We took it outside, and would you believe some of it started to thaw. It would have been wiser to leave it in the freezer and not open the door as much as possible." The temperature inside their home got down to 40 degrees. To escape the cold, Jean spent one night at the home of another son.

• David and Shirley Dellagnola of Copperton were without power for about 30 hours. With two young grandchildren, they packed up and stayed with relatives. They're talking to an electrician about getting a generator hard-wired to their furnace. "We were caught a couple of years ago in that three-day outage, but it wasn't quite so cold then and we didn't have little kids with us," David said.

• Lynn Boulter and his wife Edith, of Cottonwood Heights, faced extra hurdles. Edith was on oxygen at the time, recuperating from hip-replacement surgery, and Lynn is visually impaired. Neither of them could drive when the power outage occurred. Otherwise, they would have gone to a hotel.