Fire safety a must during the holiday season

Fire safety a must during the holiday season

WM Fire Marshal offers valuable tips

news@theeveningtimes.com

With the Thanksgiving holiday weekend behind and Christmas less than a month away the season for family gatherings and good times has arrived. Cooler temperatures and the onset of winter put most of the activities indoors and an eye to household fire prevention helps keep families safe. The biggest day for kitchen fires in the United States is Thanksgiving Day. West Memphis Fire Department Marshal Dewayne Rose said no kitchen fires were reported in the city this year. But looking ahead the Chief offered safety pointers for citizens as Christmas approaches.

• Space Heater safety starts with two considerations, third party inspection and operating the unit is a safe spot.

“Whenever you purchase one make sure there’s a third party testing label on it,” said Rose. “Someone like Underwriters Laboratory (UL), someone who has put it through the rigors and said this product is good to go.”

Space heaters are much improved in recent years but keeping them three feet away from combustibles is still a common sense recommendation. Couches, curtains and bed spreads should be outside a three foot circumference from heaters.

“They really build them much safer these days,” said Rose. “They have little pendulums built on them so when they tip over they shut off. A lot of them have integrated circuit breakers where if they get too hot they’ll shut themselves off.

• Christmas Trees provide a pair of concerns too. Live cut trees dry out more and more the longer they stand in the house. In home lights, wiring and circuit load limits are too often pushed to far at Christmas time.

“We don’t discourage the live trees but we do encourage people to keep them watered,” said Rose. “If you don’t keep watering it any kind of flame contact would be disastrous. Keep the water pan filled up.”

Recent advances with LED lit decorations make for safer in home displays.

“Safety has come a long way with Christmas tree lighting,” said Rose. “LED lights put off little to no heat, and draw very little amperage. So you don’t have worries about them overheating like you used to with hot. Halogen bulbs.”

• Kitchen Fires are in season too. West Memphis had no kitchen fires Thanksgiving Day. “That number is high throughout the whole winter season because you’ve got a lot more going on with electricity in the house,” said Rose.

• Decorations, don’t be like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

“You have people decorating, with a lot of overloaded extension cords,” said Rose. “Most house aren’t built to accommodate that much electricity.

You just have to mindful of that and not overload them.

Don’t load them more than three strands before you get on another circuit.”

• Leaf Burning is always prohibited in the City. Fires hazards, obnoxious smoke and odors are all concerns.

“The City of West Memphis has a zero tolerance for any burning,” said Rose. “It is illegal to burn anything in the City limits without a permit. The West Memphis Fire Marshal’s office does not issue burn permits any residential neighborhood.”

By John Rech