SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va.—- South Charleston Fire Chief Virgil White is urging residents to be safe when putting up Christmas lights and maintaining them.
Virgil White
He says that people who put up Christmas lights, tend to overload on power strips.
“A lot of people like to use a lot of lights and different things to dress up their houses, so they’ll use extra power strips, that’s usually where you see the overloads come in,” White said. “Sometimes they get cheap power strips and those things they shorten out and cause fires.”
However, he did say that if you use power strips to get ones that have a breaker in them.
“And if you use a power strip, you want to make sure it’s got like a breaker in it, so it does cut off to keep back feed into your house to start a fire,” White said.
Another thing he is urging residents to look after is their Christmas threes, especially if their live.
“Live Christmas trees you always want to make sure that their properly watered,” White said. “You keep a watch on it because once they dry out, and you’re using heated bulbs, it could start a fire.”
He also said that you should never leave the lights unattended, whether you’re cooking or leaving the house.
“If you’re going to do any type of cooking, it’s always good to have somebody staying with it while you’re cooking,” White said. “You never want to leave anything unattended because you never know what’s going to happen.”