Keep your Christmas tree fresh and fire-free - KOMO

Christmas trees visible light up a room and fill up your house with that fantastic vacation fragrance. But when they dry out, they go a serious fire hazard. Here are some tips on how to maintain your tree fresh and cut down the hazard of a deathly fire. Each year, Christmastide tree fires harm 100s of places across the state and cause more than $13 million in place damage. Between now and January, about two twelve people will decease in house fires caused by Christmastide trees, according to statistics. It's amazing how quickly a dry tree can travel up in flames. A presentation by the Consumer Merchandise Safety Committee proved that a dry tree is a possible inferno. Lisa Braxton with the National Fire Protection Association states that's wherefore tree fires are often deadly. "On average, one individual will decease in every nine house fires that start with Christmastide trees," she said. You necessitate to maintain safety in head when you're on the lot, picking out your tree. "When shopping for a Christmastide tree this vacation season, expression for a fresh tree with gluey rosin on the tree trunk and acerate leaves that are difficult to draw from the branches," said Julie Vallese with the CPSC. "Remember the freshness diagnostic test -- tap the tree on the ground. If it loses a batch of needles, choice a different tree."Once you acquire the tree home, cut an inch or so off the underside and acquire it right into water. And do certain you maintain the base filled with water. Your tree will be mighty thirsty when you first convey it home."Many people don't recognize that a tree will consumer a quart of H2O for each inch in diameter," " said Toilet Drengenberg with the Underwriters Labs. "That means, for example, that if you have got a two-inch diameter tree, it could initially consumer a one-half gallon of H2O each day."Will you be decorating the tree with visible lights you've had in storage? If so, bank check them for cracked, socked and frayed wires. If there's any damage, throw them out. No substance how well you H2O your tree, it's going to dry out out. That's why the experts at Underwriters Labs state you should never maintain a tree longer than four weeks. Keep your tree at least two feet away from heat energy registries that could dry out it out. And be certain to maintain tapers far away. For More Information: