Space between real christmas tree and F400 Castine?

[firefighterjake]

Oh a topic near and dear to my heart . . .

Short answer . . . must meet the clearance requirements.

Long answer . . . further away means your tree will not dry out as easily . . . and it just makes sense to have it further away in case the tree is accidentally knocked over and comes in contact with the hot woodstove.

Hearth.com members get extra credit if they can find the video starring me from a few years back that I did with the National Christmas Tree Association . . . supposedly this went national . . . and the year after I did the video I was a bit surprised to be at the NFPA Safety Expo in Boston and there I was on a huge plasma (maybe LCD) TV . . . turns out the NCTA had a booth at the show.

Sure hope its not you in the one Jay Leno showed , it was supposed to be a fireman from Florida, he put several gallons of gas around the tree and lit it.

Hehheh . . . nope not that one . . . kind of funny to see . . . sad to say the one time I attempted to light a well watered tree on fire on live TV it failed to light . . . guys back at the firehouse missed the point and were advising me to douse the tree in gasoline the next time (true story) to make it more dramatic.

 

[firefighterjake]

get a fake tree..

A well watered tree can be just as good as a tree made out of plastic . . . But a lot of folks feel better with them . . . and they are a lot less work with the needles and watering.

 

[firefighterjake]

Maybe not Jake's video, but interesting nonetheless http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNjO3wZDVlA

Only been to one house fire that started at the tree, but all I'm gonna say is wow. At least nobody was hurt.

I think part of the problem with folks and Christmas trees is multi-fold.

1) Many of us grew up in the days when we had those old, honking big lights of the 1960s and 70s that could not only dry out a tree all on their own, but they could also warm you up just by standing a few feet from the tree.

2) Every year some reporter remembers the warnings from the previous year . . . going back to who knows when . . . and so they all want to do a story on the dangers . . . not realizing that the number of actual fires involving (note I did not say started . . . since typically the fault lies with the electrical lights and not the tree) . . . is something like .001 percent . . . or maybe it's .01 percent . . . in any case . . . it's a small number of fires.

3) The number of fires are up during the holidays . . . and we hate to think of people losing all they own during the holidays . . . and they may also naturally think that all the fires must be due to holiday decorations . . . when in fact it could be due to the fact that we're cooking a lot, many of us have been heating for several months now, we're using more electricity during the winter months, etc. . . . truth is we peak in about January or February . . . and the leading causes are cooking, heating and electrical fires.

Now all of this said . . . if a tree is allowed to dry out . . . and gets going . . . or if you can get a tree to ignite and stay going . . . it adds to the fuel load to be sure . . . but then again . . . so does having a whole bunch of paper-wrapped cardboard boxes under the tree.