Christmas tree fire dangers

Tuesday, December 4th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Dried out Christmas trees cause lots of house fires this time of the year. So since pictures speak louder than words, they decided to host a burning tree demonstration in an abandoned house.

They choose two Christmas trees, both cut three weeks ago. One they watered, that's the one on the right side of the room, the other they let dry out. Then they added fire. First to the well-watered tree, the wrapping paper underneath took off right away. Then they touched the dried out tree with flame. Within minutes both were fully engulfed and thick smoke filled the room.

Afterwards, firefighters talked about the difference. Mark Owens with the Claremore Fire Dept: "Both trees have considerable burn damage, however the tree that was kept in water and was kept moist still has some pine needles on the tree and was not as much of a flame accelerator as the dry tree."

Owens says besides watering your tree daily, avoid plugging too many lights into one electrical outlet and never use lights strands with missing or broken bulbs.