4 Tips to Avoid a Christmas Tree Fire
By: Caterina Pontoriero (Property Casualty 360) December 2014
The first Christmas trees were decorated with candles. Tiny fires lit all over a dry, dying tree? Talk about an insurance risk.
Not surprisingly, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Christmas tree fires occured frequently in the U.S. Homes, churches, stores, and even a Chicago hospital in 1885 fell victim to Christmas tree fires. Fires happened so often that newspapers would report on the season’s first Christmas tree fire as casually as the first snow of the season, says Bloomberg View.
In 1895, Ralph E. Morris created stringed miniature electric lights with the intent of using them to more safely decorate Christmas trees. However, many Americans distrusted the safety of electric lights, and candles were still used to illuminate trees.
That’s why in December 1908, insurance companies attempted to create a law that would make it illegal to decorate a real Christmas tree with lit candles. According to Bloomberg View, the New York Board of Underwriters issued the following announcement to every client of every fire insurance firm in the city:
Your attention is hereby respectfully called to the fact that the introduction about the premises of Christmas green, harvest specimens and other inflammable materials, such as cotton, to represent snow, and the like, and the use of moving picture machines, introduces additional hazards not contemplated by the underwriters in issuing policies of indemnity covering the usual fire hazard.
Electric Christmas lights were also added to the list of banned decorations the following year, as the early lightbulbs weren’t much safer than candles at that point. It wasn’t until the technology improved in the 1920s that reliable Christmas tree lighting was produced and mass marketed, says Bloomberg View.
Yet even then, electric lights still caused a good number of fires. In one such incident, Bing Crosby’s North Hollywood mansion burned down after a string of Christmas lights short-circuited in 1943. Luckily for Crosby, most of the $200,000 loss was covered by insurance.
Which brings us to today. Christmas lights are a lot safer nowadays, right? Sure, but that doesn’t mean they are immune to fire risk.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), from 2007 to 2011, U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated annual average of 230 home structure fires that were started by Christmas trees. One-third of Christmas tree structure fires were caused by electrical failures or malfunctions, and nearly 20% of these structure fires occurred because some type of heat source was too close to the tree.
Although these fires are not common, when they do occur they can be very serious. On average, one of every 40 reported home structure Christmas tree fires resulted in a death.
