Winter holiday fire facts from our friends at NFPA

U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 790 home structure fires per year that began with decorations, excluding Christmas trees. These fires caused an annual average of one civilian fire death, 26 civilian fire injuries and $13 million in direct property damage.

Electrical distribution or lighting equipment was involved in more than two in five home Christmas tree fires.

Nearly one in five Christmas tree fires were started by lamps or bulbs. Six percent were started by candles.

Roughly two of every five home Christmas tree fires started in the living room.

Candle fires peak in December and January with 11 percent of candle fires in each of these months.

Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires, followed by Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.

Year round, more than one-third (35 percent) of home decoration fires were started by candles. This jumped to almost half in December when candles started 45 percent of such fires. Cooking started one-fifth (19%) of decoration fires.

Source: NFPA's Applied Research