A Guide to Safety at Christmas

Submitted by Jonathan Priest

The holidays are a wonderful time of year, but by their very nature holidays can bring increased risks to your home. Because thieves take advantage of vacant houses, for example, we see more burglaries around the holidays. And even when we’re at home, the increased activity in our homes leads to increased risks of home fires, injuries and more.

The best way to have a worry-free holiday season, then, is to understand what risks you face and act to prevent them. Only then can you ensure your home, your family, and your pets remain safe — from that first turkey dinner to when the last string of holiday lights comes down.

Lighting: Safety Before Beau

Simply putting a lot of lights on your tree won’t make it hot enough to go up in flames. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be mindful of the risks posed by misusing holiday lights. Overloads caused by stacking multiple plugs on a single electrical outlet can cause problems—and although you’ll just end up tripping a breaker in most cases, taking that attitude puts you just one failed breaker away from wiring damage or, possibly, a house fire.

You can mitigate these dangers in several ways:

· Use power strips. These often have their own built-in circuit breakers to prevent overloading your household wiring.

· When you use a power strip, only use one plug per socket, as this will protect against surges.

· Employ extension cords to avoid stretching plugs, which can pull them out of the socket, expose their prongs or wiring, and create a shock risk.

Preventing Home Fires at the Holidays

Home fires are more common at Christmas. Fires caused by candle use, for example, are almost four times more likely during the end-of-year holidays, and other risks increase as well. This is due to a number of causes. For one thing, people simply have more fires and burn more candles. Simple accidents or acts of neglect, such as knocking over a candle or forgetting to tend the fire, can cause a rug, a set of drapes, or a tree (highly flammable after a few weeks) to catch fire, and such fires can spread to other areas of the house.

Here’s how to be safer:

· Stack wood carefully away from the fireplace so it can’t catch easily.

· Keep tinder enclosed or out of reach of any sparks that could be thrown out of the fire.

· When using candles, don’t burn them for more than 4 hours. “Resting” candles gives them time to recover their shape, preventing hot wax from spilling.

And unless your family traditions will suffer, avoid using a turkey fryer. Every year, deep-fryer fires are responsible for five deaths, 60 injuries, the destruction of 900 homes, and more than $15 million in property damage, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

To avoid creating more hazards than necessary, you should also choose your tree with fire safety in mind:

· Choose a Christmas tree that has at least two feet of clearance beneath your ceiling.

· Trim the tree branches so that your tree fits in a corner without brushing the walls or furniture.

· Cut branches far enough away from the ground to allow for proper ventilation even after presents begin to accumulate.

All of this will help prevent a fire from spreading as quickly as it otherwise would.

You should also have your chimney cleaned regularly. Otherwise, soot and other debris can build up and cause fires as well. To be on the safe side, even if you’ve just checked all your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, check them again around the holidays.

Also, to prevent slips and falls outside the home, use salt on steps and sidewalks.

And moderate food and beverage intake, especially alcohol, during the holidays. <

This article was brought to you courtesy of Farmers Insurance agent, Jonathan Priest, with an office at 57 Tandberg Trail, Suite 7, Windham and StaySafe.org. Call him at 207-893-8184 or send him an email at jpriest1@farmersagent.com