City of Waterloo, IA WLO Fire Rescue, 9 Dec 2020

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From YouTube: Waterloo Fire Rescue and Christmas Tree Safety

Description

Battalion Chief Beck explains how to keep your Christmas tree safe in home during the holidays.

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We here at waterloo, fire aren't a bunch of scrooges. Okay, it's not all the gloom and doom. Don't do this. Don't do that live christmas. Trees are really pretty safe if you buy them from a reputable tree manufacturer tree dealer and you keep it water yourself, it will stay moist enough that it won't just immediately combust on fire.

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We also want to really emphasize that led lights are extremely safe. The old school bulb ones that can get hot or have open circuits to them are kind of going away. You can buy. You can buy christmas lights now that are all led they're pretty. They do all kinds of different things, but they're cool they don't get as warm as regular lights and they also use less electricity.

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So we've had that less of a chance of a short at that time. If you can feel the needles on your tree and if they readily fall off just by touching them they're too dry.

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Also, at this time of the year, you can absolutely buy a tree. Have it up now, plenty of time it's going to stay moist enough throughout the year safely, once the season's over? We do need to discard it.

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If we're going to have a christmas tree fire, it's typically going to be after christmas, because the tree has been up for a long time and we don't have enough water for it to siphon up through the roots. The city does a great job. It has a pickup for christmas trees available it'll, be probably in january this year, absolutely utilize that time do not burn your christmas tree in a burn pit or any type of uh campfire setup in the in the backyard.

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The leaves go up. The needles go up very quickly and it is not considered safe, dried firewood. It will be against our ordinance if conditions are perfect and they the fire, starts at the bottom of the very, very dry tree in a moment of seconds. The entire tree itself can be involved.

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If you see smoking or you smell that either hot electrical smell or that hot wood smell first thing you can do. If there's no fire is unplug. Your tree. Try and move everything out from away from it and see if you can find out where it's where it's hot at a water extinguisher should work for a tree fire.

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An abc fire extinguisher would work, keep in mind it's a big fire, so a small kitchen sized one meant for a small pot of grease may not be enough, never turn your back to it and always call the fire department. If you have that kind of an issue from our family to yours, waterloo, fire rescue wishes you a safe and happy.

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