Gary O'Brien invited the CBC's Anna Rak into his home to share some suggestions for safer decorating and cooking this holiday season.

Toronto

Deputy Fire Marshal Gary O'Brien has outlined several fire safety measures for the holiday season. He advises choosing a fresh Christmas tree and watering it daily, or opting for an artificial tree, and stresses the importance of using lighting that meets safety standards.

O'Brien also recommends flameless or battery-operated candles, safe kitchen practices, and using outdoor-rated lights on separate circuits. He emphasizes the need for properly installed smoke alarms on every level of the home and in each bedroom.

Deputy fire marshal offers tips for a safer holiday season

someone from experience and knowledge of how quickly disaster can happen this time of year. Deputy Fire Marshal Gary O'Brien has some tips to share so that the fire department does not have to get involved during your holiday gatherings. Tip number one, the Christmas tree. When you go to pick out your tree, although it's a great thing, you go to the woods, it's a family gathering, everything's wonderful, but you've got to make sure it's not dry coming into the house. It could be in the house for a couple of weeks and you're heating your house at this time of year so it could dry up pretty quickly. So watering, watering is very important, I'd water it each day. In his house, O'Brien went with an artificial tree. He says it's important to ensure you're using the right type of lighting, even if it's a real or fake tree. So making sure your lighting on a tree is appropriate and it's CSA, ULC, meets the standard for both, is key to at least knowing that what you're putting on your tree is going to act the way you expect it to. Many holiday decorations can also pose a fire risk. Take those scented holiday candles. O'Brien recommends using a flameless candle warmer or battery-operated candles. At home, we have candles that kind of fool me. I look at them and I think they're real and they're not. They're battery-operated, they look the same, they flicker just the same, but you don't got to worry about any direct flame contact or anything else. In the kitchen, O'Brien says the biggest cause of fires is unattended pots or pans on the stove, overcrowded kitchens, and people bumping into pot handles. No matter what you're cooking, if you're cooking with grease, you're cooking with butter, you're cooking whatever, and you get distracted, you come back, there's a fire on the stove, you have a frying pan, and it doesn't have a cover on it, and you come back and it's on fire. Well, to have that close by is everything you need. If the fire's contained within, it's put on, and the fire goes out. And that's very simple, but people just don't do it, and that's when we respond to these scenes. When it comes to your outdoor decorations, O'Brien says to ensure your lights are outdoor-rated and won't overload your electrical circuit. For myself, I use three separate outlets that are on different circuits within my house, which allows me to feel safe that there's no circuit overload within the home. O'Brien also says that the most important thing to ensure is that smoke alarms are properly installed in your house, on each level of a bedroom. Anna Rak, CBC News, Reserve Minds.

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Breakdown