It is that time of year again. The stockings are hung, but is your home decorated with proper safety measures to ensure your holiday is without incident. Everything seems to be in high gear, and it is easy to forget about safety during the holidays.
Here are 10 important holiday safety tips to make this holiday season a safe one.
Holiday Decorations
- Practice appropriate ladder safety when hanging decorations inside or outside.
- Use only non-combustible and flame-resistant materials to trim a tree.
- Make sure live Christmas trees are watered daily, dry trees are a fire hazard.
- Never use lighted candles on a tree or near other evergreens.
- Keep heavy items or small choking hazards out of reach of children.
Holiday Lighting
- Use caution with holiday decorations and, whenever possible, choose those made with flame-resistant, flame-retardant, and non-combustible materials.
- Do not use candles to decorate Christmas trees.
- Carefully inspect new and used light strings, and replace damaged items before plugging lights in.
- Never use electric lights on a metallic tree. The tree can become charged with electricity, and a person could be electrocuted.
- Before using lights outdoors, check labels to be sure they have been certified for outdoor use.
- Plug all outdoor electric decorations into circuits with ground-fault circuit interrupters to avoid potential shocks.
Holiday Entertaining
- Unattended cooking is the leading cause of home fires in the USA. Keep any eye om all cooking activities.
- Provide plenty of large, deep ashtrays. Cigarette butts can smolder in the trash and cause a fire, so completely douse cigarette butts.
- Keep matches and lighters up high, out of sight and reach of children.
- Test your smoke alarms.
Christmas Trees
- When choosing an artificial tree, make sure the label says fire-resistant.
- When purchasing a live tree, check for freshness. A fresh tree is green, needles are hard to pull from branches.
- When setting up a tree at home, place it away from fireplaces, radiators, and space heaters.
- Cut a few inches off the trunk of your tree to expose the fresh wood. This allows for better water absorption.
- Be sure to keep the stand filled with water, heated rooms can dry live trees rapidly.
Fireplace
- Before lighting any fire, remove all greens, boughs, papers, and other decorations from near the fireplace area. .
- Do not burn wrapping papers in the fireplace. A flash fire may result as wrappings ignite suddenly and burn intensely.
About First Choice Restoration
First Choice Restoration is a water, mold, fire, and smoke remediation company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. The company also operates additional offices throughout other areas of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware. The company has been assisting homeowners and businesses with water, mold, fire, and smoke cleanup for over 40 years.
