Tree Fires

A news report this morning showed a house fire that killed some people. Officials think it was caused by the lights on the Christmas tree. The report said there are around 100 Christmas tree fires per year. That sure sounds like a reason to go shopping for LED lights at the after Christmas sales.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman
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1+ LED Christmas lights are prettier too.

and put some water in the stand!

Reply to
T

Artificial trees look very nice these days and are made from fire retardant materials. Mine has LED lights built in.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

My Christmas tree is still out in the woods. Maybe I'll go visit today. It's 195 feet high, wouldn't quite fit in the house.

Reply to
rbowman

What kind of tree? At that height, I suspect it is a Douglas Fir.

:-)

Reply to
T

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That one is a ponderosa pine.

For circumference, a larch has it beat:

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You have to scroll down. The scoring takes into account the height, girth, and crown but for just height a douglas fir comes in a 4th at 178'.

Reply to
rbowman

Awsome pictures!

My favoriet two pine trees are ponderosa and jefferies.

A questions for you on your ponderosa: butterscotch or vanilla?

Yes, I can resist sniffing them.

Reply to
T

Smells like a p. pine to me... In '89 I worked on a nature trail the Forest Service was building. One of the stops was a pine and the descriptive brochure said it smelled live vanilla so that's the official story.

While brushing out the trail I came across a hawthorn. I have a particular distaste for that specie so I fired up the Stihl and cut it to the roots.

A couple of days later the ranger in charge of the project gave me a copy of the proposed trail guide. 'Er, Annie, we've got a little problem with the stop at the hawthorn.' I couldn't find another hawthorn anywhere near the trail so we skipped that one.

I never understood hawthorn jelly unless the British version has more taste than the Doughlas hawthorn. Those berries re all seed and no taste. They're similar enough to service berries to try to ambush me but I approach carefully checking for thorns.

Reply to
rbowman

Those C7 and C9 incandescent lights do get hot. Also, LED light colors don't fade. This Christmas I have only one C9 incandescent (Rudolph's nose) and it's outside.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

They are. The light from most LEDs is actually that color, not "dirty yellow" (usually called white) filtered through paint that comes off and looks bad.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I really don't like "pre-lit" trees. It deprives you of creativity (decorating).

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

It has a well distributed lighting pattern and you can have a solid color, multi color, or changing at random. All the creativity I need. Oh, my stand rotates too.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

We cut our own trees at Christmas tree farms. Most have a drill that will ensure your tree will stand up straight, regardless of what the trunk is doing - as long as you have a stand like the one shown below. With this type of the stand you can rotate the tree (manually) as you decorate it.

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The tree farms have a jig that allows them to position the base of the trunk in a "bowl" and then put the top of the tree in a "V" so it stands up straight, even if the trunk is twisted or curved. Then they step on a pedal and a conical drill bit comes up through the bottom of the cup and into the trunk.

When you get home, you just plunk the tree on the spike and start decorating. No thumbscrews, clamps or anything. Just Plunk!

Reply to
Marilyn Manson

After a lightining strike here, the entire tree almost disappears (except for a few branches and leaves).

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Reply to
bruce bowser

Whole lotta nature going on here...

A double rainbow framing mountain top lightening strikes

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Reply to
Marilyn Manson

but I get to actually position the lights, and that is an important part of Christmas.

BTW, I used to have one of those rotating stands. It would make a sound like someone snoring (IIRC once every time it went around).

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

I made a service call long ago and found that an underground wire was bad. The farmer told me about an old timers' story that said lightning would bore holes in the ground. It turned out that's what happened. The lightning strike bored a hole that went down to the bad underground wire and stopped there. The corn was still mostly green except for some stalks right around the hole. The same thing happened at another farm a few years later.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

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