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Toss your live Christmas trees! It could now be a fire hazard

The holidays are behind us, but some of us may still have our Christmas trees up. If you have a live tree, it could now be a fire hazard in your home.

The holidays are behind us, but some of us may still have our Christmas trees up. If you have a live tree, it could now be a fire hazard in your home.

The National Fire Protection Association is urging folks to remove Christmas trees from their homes now that the holidays are over, as dried out trees can easily catch on fire.

“Once [a live tree] dries out, there is no water there to stop any type of heat transfer,” explained Capt. Frank McKenzie, a spokesman for Huntsville Fire and Rescue. “So if you get any type of heat in a dried out Christmas tree, there’s no water in it so it can’t absorb that heat and turn into steam and evaporate. Actually what it does is ignite.”

McKenzie says a dry tree can go up in flames in less than a minute. Nearly one-third of Christmas tree fires in homes in the US happen in January.

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