Fires common at Christmas: How to prevent disaster during the holidays

Each year at Christmastime, the threat of house fires increases because of the dangers of holiday cooking, visitors, and strings of lights plugged into usually too few outlets.

Acting Prince William County Fire Chief James Forgo provided some helpful holiday tips to keep your family and home safe at Christmas.

“Usually, this time of year also means it’s cold weather out there, and a lot of the folks are inside the house. And then, when they gather, they have special guests over, so they take the time to decorate the house. And some of the things that they really need to worry about or think about is making sure they don’t overload their circuits with their Christmas decorations and making sure that they never leave. A lot of people use candles, and you never want to leave those unattended. You never want to use them near combustibles like curtains or presents, cardboard boxes, a real Christmas tree, and never use anywhere where children or pets can be around,” Forgo told WMAL Radio reporter Barbara Britt in a podcast interview.

A woman was seriously injured at her home in Bristow after she was burned by a candle on December 7. In January, 11 people were displaced after a candle caused a fire in their home.

“Unfortunately, getting too close to a flame and then catching your clothes on fire. We got to remember going back to when we were kids to make sure we learned the basic rules and teach our kids, stop, drop, and roll. That would have really helped a lot with the injury,” said Forgo. “Candles are really bad when they’re unattended.

“Also, another big one is folks bringing in live Christmas trees. The earlier they get them, you want to make sure that you keep them hydrated, and that you’re always putting water in the stand to keep them going because they will dry out. And once they do, they can go up in moments, in a few seconds. You want to make sure you keep those away from fireplaces and space heaters,” Forgo continued.

When cooking Christmas dinner in communities across the nation, food burning on the stove is one of the critical causes of housefires.

“You never want to leave cooking unattended. A lot of times we’re all from busy families and we’ll start something and we’ll walk away and forget about it and come back,” said Forgo. “You want to make sure you keep away from small children and pets that can then either get up or accidentally hit the stove and knock something over.

It’s also important to keep away items from a stove that will easily catch fire.

“A lot of times we’ll put a box or we’ll put a pot holder or a glove next to the stove that can catch on fire. Never wear loose clothing while you’re cooking because you can reach across, especially on a gas stove where it can catch on fire,’ said Forgo. “And a lot of times we usually eat the traditional meals and that’s turkey usually, and we do a lot of frying of turkey. So you want to make sure that you do that outside away from the house. Never cook a frozen turkey and never leave it unattended.”

Forgo also suggested you have a plan in place to escape your home during a fire. He also reminded residents not to stack Christmas presents packages and presents in escape routes, and to be mindful of pets who are prone to chew and tear into the packages, potentially making them sick.