Posted: November 20, 2010
Christmas trees account for 250 fires each year. 14 of those involve deaths. You can do a simple thing to prevent most of these fires. WATER THAT CHRISTMAS TREE. Typically shorts in electrical lights or open flames from candles, lighters or matches start tree fires. Water That Tree to prevent a catastrophe.
This video clip demonstrates how fast a dry tree can go up in flames. Within three seconds the dry Christmas tree (a scotch pine) is up in flames. Within 5 seconds smoke and gas are on the ceiling. Fresh air near the floor feeds the fire. Within 40 seconds the sofa carpet and coffee table are up in flames and a flashover occurs with the whole room ablaze.
Wet trees tell a different story. The NIST fire safety engineers selected a green Scotch pine. They had it cut in their presence, , and placed the tree in a stand with at least a 7.6 liter water capacity. The researchers kept the Scotch pine's water on a daily basis. A single match could not ignite the tree. A second attempt in which an electric current ignited an entire matchbook failed to fire the tree. Finally they applied an open flame to the tree using a propane torch. The branches ignited briefly, but self-extinguished when the researchers removed the torch from the branches. REMEMBER, A WET TREE IS A SAFE TREE!
One final thing. MAKE SURE YOU Check your Smoke Detector. Know that a photelectric senses smoke and an ionic flame. You may want to use both for the best protection.
by Cincinnati Accident injury attorney Anthony Castelli
