Fire District 12 in Covington used a three-walled room this week to demonstrate what happens when Christmas decorations and fire mix.

To make the demonstration as realistic as possible, firefighters constructed a three-walled room and decorated it to look like an average living room during the holidays.

The room was constructed using supplies donated by Home Depot. All standard home construction supplies and building techniques were adhered to, including Sheetrocked walls and a carpeted floor. The room was furnished using a loveseat, recliner and table donated from Goodwill. Family pictures were hung on the walls, presents were wrapped and laid under the tree and toys were scattered on the floor.

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Of special notice was the three-wheeled bike sticking out from beside the tree, reminding all present that this could very well be a child’s home on Christmas morning.

In the corner the tree stood, only 10 days old, and already dry and brittle. It’s needles starting to turn a light brown.

“This tree was only cut 10 days ago,” Deputy Chief Stephen Krentel, said, “it is not nearly as dry as a lot of trees are by the end of Christmas season.”

Simulating a shorted out electrical plug, firefighters light the bottom of a Christmas tree using a small hole at the back of the room.

The fire quickly engulfed the tree and within seconds had spread to the table and love seat.

At 2:12 on Thursday afternoon the smoke alarm sounded inside the mock living room.

Krentel made the 911 call, and a minute later the call came back over the radio on his side.

By this time the room was fully engulfed and flames and smoke were reaching far into the air above the fire station on Louisiana Highway 36, where the simulation was staged.

At 2:17 the fire truck, which had gone a mile or so down the road to wait on the call, appeared on scene.

In just three minutes the fire was completely out, but the room was gutted.

While inspecting what was left of the mock living room, Krentel noted that drywall on the ceiling had burned away, indicating that if this had been a real house, the fire would have spread into the attic, where it would have likely gained momentum and heat.

There were also spots on the sidewalls where the fire had burned through, indicating the fire would have entered other rooms in the home. Those other rooms could very well have included the bedroom where the child lay sleeping, eagerly waiting to find his bike under the tree on Christmas morning.

All that was left in the room was the bike’s metal frame, the springs out of the love seat and part of the tree’s trunk.

Krentel said the demonstration illustrates that in four minutes a home is fully involved. He said the time it took the firefighters to put out the blaze was misleading and would be much longer in an actual fire, because the fire would have spread, the firefighters would have had to access the scene before make an entrance into the structure and once inside they would still have to walk though the homes to find the fire before they could start their attack.

To prevent such devastation, he said the best thing people can do is not overload electrical plugs and not connect multiple strings on lights into each other.

He said people should also make sure their tree remains watered, and he recommends spraying flame retardant on the tree.

He said it is also important to make sure artificial trees are flame retardant.

He said it is also important to make sure the lights are turned off when you go to bed or leave the house.

“Every time the lights are turn on,” Krentel said, “the tree is dehydrated.”

An especially with all of the extra fire hazards during the holidays, Krentel added, make sure all of the fire alarms in your home are in working order as the most important things one can do during a house fire is to get out early, because as this demonstration showed, a fire spreads and can consume a room within seconds and a house within minutes.