Jackson Fire Department hosts live Christmas tree burning
JACKSON, Tenn. — The Jackson Fire Department shared how you can prevent a fire from ruining your Christmas this year.
The department hosted a demonstration Monday night, showing the dangers of what would happen if your Christmas tree were to catch flame.
“What we have for you today is a Christmas tree burn demonstration. We’re going to show the effects of fire on a live Christmas tree versus an artificial tree,” said Latrell Billingsley, Public Education Officer for the Jackson Fire Department.
Billingsley says these situations are not as common, but they do happen. So it’s important to know the risks.
“When they do happen, they are usually pretty bad because it’s such a huge fuel load with the presents being right there, the trees being right there,” Billingsley said.
Billingsley says it’s important to water your live trees and double-check to make sure you are not using outside lights for an indoor tree.
“Not to overload their extension cords. Please don’t use lit candles to decorate. Turn your Christmas tree lights out when you go to bed, when you leave the house,” Billingsley said.
Billingsley says if you have a fire at home during this time of year, it is an absolute tragedy because you could possibly lose everything before Christmas and even worse.
“You’re possibly losing all of your personal belongings. You’re expecting to come home. The kids are expecting to come home to their gifts. Those things are gone, and unfortunately, sometimes people pass away in these fires as well. So we don’t want anybody to experience these kind of tragedies. So if we can share this information on the front end to keep something like that from happening, then we feel like we’ve done our job,” Billingsley said.
For more information and more safety tips on how to have a safe holiday season, click here.
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