NFPA Fact Sheets
Christmas Tree Fires
Carefully decorating Christmas trees can help make your holidays safer.
Facts & Figures*
In 1998, Christmas trees were the first item ignited in 300 home fires, resulting in 11 injuries and $8 million in direct property damage.
The leading cause of Christmas tree fires and property damage was short circuit or ground fault (21%). In this category, electrical failure other than short circuit ranked second in number of fires, injuries and property damage with the exception of the "other known" category.
Cords and plugs were the leading type of equipment involved in the ignition of Christmas trees.
Unspecified short circuit arc accounted for an average of more than 100 fires (20%), no civilian deaths, 14 civilian injuries, and $3.3 million in direct property damage from 1994-1998.
(*From NFPA's U.S. Home Product Report, Forms and Types of Materials First Ignited)
More:
http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/Christmas99.PDF http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/ChristmasTrees.pdf Also, another well know bit of trivia, the holidays are the season for electrical fires, and/or other electrical problems, that don't involve X-mas trees. Everyones home, and everything is on. Plus some
inexpensive lighting and suplimental cords strung all around the house... Ask some of those Service Call type guys about things youd get called for on X-mas. Failed breakers, GFI's, lost neutrals, arching equipment failures, endless over-loaded circuits, you name it. X-mas and Thanksgiving are a stress test for the average household electrical system.
Anyway, not trying to be Ebinezer Scrooge, but would not trust them in easily accessible wet locations. You can barely trust them in dry hardly accessible locations.
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