Tips for a safe holiday season

Unfortunately, the holiday season claims the highest number of fires than any other time of the year. Fireplaces give warmth and a relaxing atmosphere, strings of lights help provide a festive look to your home or business and candles fill the air with your favorite holiday scent.

But all of this can be gone in minutes. When I was 8 years old, I heard someone yelling outside in the early hours of the morning. Jumping out of bed to see what was up; I saw our neighbor’s house on fire. It was a 2-story house and the mom and two sons were sitting on the roof while the father was banging on our back door, hollering for an extension ladder. He needed to rescue his family!

Their house caught fire because of a faulty string of lights on the Christmas tree. Luckily, they were OK. I can remember the impact that loss had on them – even at that young age. The pain they felt wasn’t just that one night, but for months and months because of the effort spent trying to remember their belongings so they could provide a list to their insurance agent.

The Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) offer these safety tips to help ensure that you have a safe holiday.

• Look for the UL Mark on light strings, electrical decorations and extension cords. The UL Mark means that UL engineers have tested representative samples of the product for foreseeable safety hazards such as fire and electric shock.
  Ensure lights, decorations and extension cords are rated for outside use. Lights intended for indoor-only use bear green UL Marks. Light strings intended for indoor and outdoor use bear red UL marks.
• Read and follow the manufacturer's instructions for electrical decorations.
• Carefully inspect each electrical decoration - new or old - before plugging it in. Cracked sockets, frayed, bare or loose wires can cause a serious electric shock or start a fire.
• Replace damaged items with new, UL-Listed decorations.
• Don't use staples or nails to hang light strings. Instead, purchase hooks or clips designed for hanging light strings.
• Check packaging to determine the maximum number of strings that may be connected or use this rule of thumb: Connect a maximum of three midget (push-in bulbs) light strings or up to 50 bulbs of light strings with the screw-in bulbs (C7s and C9s).
• Don't overload extension cords by plugging in too many decorations.
• Turn off all electrical lights and decorations before leaving home or going to bed.

And while you have your decorations out of storage, remember to take photos of your holiday items and list the high value ones, then add this information to your business and home inventories. Have a safe holiday season!