Evergy
The holiday season is here. As families get ready to put up holiday decorations, Evergy is reminding customers to be safe with both indoor and outdoor holiday lights.
Customers are encouraged to follow these guidelines:
- Inspect electrical decorations for damage. Discard them if wiring or sockets are bare, cracked or otherwise damaged.
- Make sure holiday lights and decorations are properly rated for indoor or outdoor use. External decorations should be rated for outdoor use. They are manufactured with heavy-duty wiring and to be weather resistant.
- Don’t connect more than three strings of lights. Longer strings can blow a fuse and start a fire.
- Look for certification labels. Decorations should have labels from independent testing laboratories such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Canadian Standards Association (CSA) or Intertek (ETL). If they don’t, they haven’t been tested for safety and could be a fire hazard.
- Don’t overload outlets. Overloaded outlets are a common cause of fires. Only plug one power strip or one high-wattage appliance into each outlet at a time.
- Water your real tree daily: Dry trees are a serious fire hazard.
- Use electric or battery-operated candles. Almost half of all decoration fires are started by candles with a flame.
- Protect your electrical cords from damage. Don’t pinch cords through doorways, windows or under furniture. Don’t place them under rugs or near heat sources.
- When you go to sleep, so should your decorations. Half of home fire deaths occur between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Turn off, unplug and extinguish all decorations when they aren’t attended. Unattended candles are the cause of one in five home candle fires. Outlets with timers can make this easy.
Customers can visit Evergy’s website for more information on holiday safety.
In addition, an Evergy representative is available for interviews to speak more about holiday safety.