Holiday Safety facts 2.0

12/6/2021 (Permalink)

Holiday Safety

The holidays are so much fun, especially for the kids!

Gathering with family, wrapping presents, putting up the tree, the smells of delicious foods and treats abound. We ALL want a safe holiday season and here are some facts to keep you having fun throughout the whole holiday season.

Did you know that electrical distribution or lighting equipment was involved in almost half of home Christmas tree fires?

According to NFPA

Nearly one in five Christmas tree fires were started by decorative lights. Eight percent were started by candles.

Roughly two of every five home Christmas tree fires started in the living room.

Christmas tree & decoration fires

Carefully decorating your home can help make your holidays safer. Between 2015-2019, U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 160 home fires that started with Christmas trees per year. U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 790 home structure fires per year that began with decorations, excluding Christmas trees.

As Christmas trees dry out, they become more and more flammable. Thirty percent of Christmas tree fires were in January. Although Christmas tree fires are not common, they can grow very fast.

U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 790 home structure fires per year that began with decorations, excluding Christmas trees, in 2015-2019. These fires caused an annual average of one civilian fire death, 26 civilian fire injuries and $13 million in direct property damage.

Year-round, more than one-third of home decoration fires were started by candles. Cooking started 19 percent of decoration fires, 12 percent involved electrical distribution and lighting equipment, heating equipment was involved in 11 percent, 8 percent were intentionally set, and smoking materials started 7 percent.

Candles

Between 2015-2019, U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 7,400 home fires that were started by candles. These fires caused an average of 90 civilian deaths, 670 civilian injuries and $291 million in direct property damage.

On average, 20 home candle fires were reported each day between 2015-2019.

Candle fires peak in December and January with 11 percent of candle fires in each of these months.

Christmas is the peak day for candle fires with roughly 2.5 times the daily average.

Holiday cooking

Cooking equipment was involved in one of every five (19%) of home decoration fires.

This can happen when a decoration is left on or too close to a stove or other cooking equipment.

In 2019, the three leading dates for home structure fires caused by cooking were, Thanksgiving, Christmas day and Christmas Eve.

For more information on how to keep your family safe in the kitchen this holiday season, follow this informative link: Cooking Safety

For more fire tips and tricks, visit our SERVPRO fire blogs at Fire Safety

"Like it never even happened."