Holiday Safety

Holiday Safety

As we get ready for this holiday season, let’s remain aware and prepare!

For Fire Safety Education, from Cal Fire, please see here.

Give the gift of fire safety with these colorful gift tags! Duplicate the tags and attach them to your gifts and distribute to friends/families to use. Download the gift tags here. (NFPA)

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), each year in the United States, an average of 210 house fires are needlessly caused by the family Christmas tree, and one in every 31 Christmas tree fires results in a death compared to an average of one death per 139 total reported home fires.  Electrical failures, decorative lights and candles also rank high as leading causes of house fires during the holiday season. Please see the following holiday safety tips:

TOP 10 HOLIDAY SAFETY TIPS

  1. Inspect electrical decorations for damage before use. 
    Cracked or damaged sockets, loose or bare wires, and loose connections may cause a serious shock or start a fire.
  2. Do not overload electrical outlets. 
    Overloaded electrical outlets and faulty wires are a common cause of holiday fires. Avoid overloading outlets and plug only one high-wattage into each outlet at a time.
  3. Never connect more than three strings of incandescent lights. 
    More than three strands may not only blow a fuse, but can also cause a fire.
  4. Keep trees fresh by watering daily.
    Dry trees are a serious fire hazard! Continue below to see a video.
  5. Use battery-operated candles. 
    Candles start almost half of home decoration fires.
  6. Keep combustibles at least three feet from heat sources. 
    A heat sources that was too close to the decoration was a factor in half of home fires that began with decorations).
  7. Protect cords from damage. 
    To avoid shock or fire hazards, cords should never be pinched by furniture, forced into small spaces such as doors and windows, placed under rugs, located near heat sources, or attached by nails or staples.
  8. Check decorations for certification label.
    Decorations not bearing a label from an independent testing laboratory such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Canadian Standards Association (CSA), or Intertek (ETL) have not been tested for safety and could be hazardous.
  9. Stay in the kitchen when something is cooking. 
    Unattended cooking equipment is the leading cause of home cooking fires.
  10. Turn off, unplug, and extinguish all decorations when going to sleep or leaving the house. 
    Unattended candles are the cause of one in five home candle fires. Half of home fire deaths occur between the hours of 11pm and 7am.

For more Holiday Safety Tips from the NFPA, please see here.

For Christmas Tree Safety Tips from the NFPA, please see here.

 

A dried out Christmas tree will engulf in flames within SECONDS. Watch below.

A live Christmas tree burn conducted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) shows just how quickly a dried out Christmas tree fire burns, with flashover occurring in less than one minute, as compared to a well-watered tree, which burns at a much slower rate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=xr6b9b8FYKk

For additional holiday and décor safety tips from the LACoFD, go to  www.fire.lacounty.gov.

For additional safety precautions from the National Safety Council, such as watching out for those fire-starters, please see here.