With Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, adding awareness to fire safety is crucial. Topeka Fire Marshal Alan Stahl offers some helpful tips to ensure the safety of those celebrating the holidays.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are among the leading days of house fires annually. In addition, the NFPA listed that Christmas trees, holiday decorations, cooking and baking all contribute to an annual increase in U.S. home fires during winter.

Christmas is widely celebrated for days, weeks and sometimes months. So it’s expected that when the Halloween decorations are shelved, the Christmas decorations are ready to go out for display in homes and businesses. Christmas lights are one of the many causes of a spike in house fires during the winter holiday months. Therefore, finding the correct extension cord, the proper amount of lights to display and handling your electrical usage are vitally important.

“The biggest issue we see is when people plug in too many lights end-to-end, or have too many on one outlet,” Stahl said. “If you have too many lights connected, it causes an overload. The strings can’t always handle that kind of heat that causes fires. Your extension cord always needs to be bigger in diameter than the cord that you’re plugging into it.”

“The thing we want people to do is to buy extension cords that are grounded. You could use a grounded extension cord with two prongs, but we are much more comfortable with you using cords with three prongs,” Stahl continued.

It is highly recommended that if one does not use their Christmas lights after the holidays, they could recycle them. Holiday light strings contain plastic, glass and lead, which can harm the environment.

“It’s up to the individual person what they should do with their Christmas lights once they’re done using them,” Stahl said. “Anytime we can recycle, we recommend doing that. It’s not just good for the environment but good for our own safety. We recommend that you cut the cords off the end of the lights once you’re done using [the lights]. If you have an issue with them and the cord is cut off, it limits the risk of somebody else trying to use them.”

Christmas trees can play as big a part in a holiday catastrophe as the lights do. Once a fire is started, a Christmas tree can only fuel it. Therefore, before one goes to bed, it is recommended that they unplug their lights inside and/or outside. A timer that can automatically turn lights off is also a helpful resource.

“One of the biggest messages that we would like to pass on is, with any holiday, is to use your decorations safely,” Stahl said. “Especially with Christmas, ensure that your decorations are in good working order and that we are not overloading the plug-ins. Distribute the electrical load through your house. Use your decorations in the right way so that you don’t cause a problem.”

For additional help in house fire prevention, go to www.redcross.org.

Edited by LeSha’ Davis, Glorianna Noland