Winter safety tips to practice especially during the holiday season

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — We have entered December and are welcoming all the holiday festivities and decorations.

With this in mind, local first responders are encouraging the public to be extra safe in and around their homes.

As decorations are lighting up our homes, it’s important to see how lights and heating units can pose a threat.

Some of the biggest causes of winter fires may shock you.

“We have seen an increase of house fires, right now, due to when we have those cold snaps and people start using their additional heating sources,” PIO for the Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management Amy Maxwell said.

As temperatures drop this winter, first responders are seeing an increase in people turning up their heating and air units.

Taking extra care of these parts of your house can be vital when harsh cold fronts come in.

“It’s so important to make sure that you take those preventative matters to make sure that your A/C units have been cleaned and checked out… You have a professional chimney sweeper that comes and cleans out your chimney… Because, you know it’s better to be safe than sorry. We always encourage people that it’s better to be proactive than reactive. So it’s good to take these simple safety tips especially during the holiday season and the cold snaps that we will continue to see… To avoid us having to come out to your house– whether it’s injuries or putting out fires that can be potentially avoided,” Maxwell said.

Leaving a kitchen unattended when cooking is one of the main causes of house fires recently.

Maxwell said the same goes for chimney fires.

The overloading of electrical outlets is another threat during the winter.

“I highly recommend that you have server protectors. That you make sure those outlets can accommodate and revive that electrical, additional electricity, for indoors and outdoors. Make sure if you have a live tree, you keep it watered. That’s one of the things that we see too. If you keep a tree from getting watered, it can get dried out very very quickly and catch fire very very quickly as well,” Maxwell said.

Christmas tree fires are a popular trend as the holiday season continues.

Making sure your outlets can power all of the components is especially important as temperatures continue to drop and additional power sources are being used.

Besides just holiday decorations, servicing your internal fixtures are just as important.

“A lot of people don’t get those services ahead of time… To make sure that they don’t have animals that have built nests, or critters that live in there– and as a result– when they go to turn on those heating units… They end up catching that additional messy material on fire. Which will travel through the air ducts and spread throughout the house very quickly,” Maxwell said.

During the holiday season, something as simple as unplugging Christmas lights could save your life.

“A lot of people don’t realize… ‘Oh, it’s never going to happen to me…’ And then they take those things under consideration after it has either happened to them or to a family member or friend… We want everybody to have a great holiday season and to avoid potential injuries as much as possible,” Maxwell said.