Countywide : A So-Far Uneventful ‘Burning Season’ Still Potentially Dangerous

The so-called “burning season”--when cold, dry weather, seasonal Santa Ana winds and holiday decorations contribute to an upswing in house fires--has fizzled so far, county authorities said Tuesday.

This year, the period from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day “is shaping up as one of our most fire-safe in many years,” said Emmy Day, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Department.

County fire officials, whose jurisdiction covers more than 900,000 people in 18 cities and unincorporated areas, attribute this year’s safe result to milder temperatures, rain and increased prevention efforts.

Normally, when temperatures drop in late November, firefighters start to worry.

“It’s cold outside, and people think, ‘Oh, we’ll light a fire and snuggle around it,’ ” Orange County Fire Capt. Dan Young said. “Well, that’s all wonderful, but it’s also extremely dangerous. If you’re not careful, you can spark a fire.”

The 1994 unofficial “burning season” began the week of Thanksgiving, when seven house fires broke out in a 24-hour period. Those fires, some of which were caused by space heaters and sparks from a fireplace, left one person dead, half a dozen people homeless and caused nearly $1 million in damage.

But since then, officials said, there has been a marked drop-off of serious house fires.

In December, Christmas trees and holiday lights add to the fire danger.

“The Christmas season for the past several years has been marked by both death and destruction of property,” Day said. In 1991, faulty Christmas tree lights sparked a fire in Santa Ana in which a body was so badly burned initially that the identity and gender could not be determined; three other family members also died as a result of burns, she said.

In 1992, a child in Costa Mesa playing with matches near a Christmas tree set a fire that caused $100,000 in damage and sent the home’s owners to the hospital with critical injuries. Last year was safer, Day said, with no fire deaths reported in the county, although two families in Orange and Huntington Beach suffered thousands of dollars in damage to their homes by fires caused by faulty tree lights.

Officials cautioned, however, that the most dangerous period of the burning season is not yet over.

“With many homes still decorated and many Christmas trees still in place, there is still danger and a need for caution,” Day said. “Traditionally, the worst of the Christmas season fires occur between Dec. 25 and the . . . New Year. Many homes still have Christmas trees, but people become more lax about watering them at just the time of their maximum dryness. A dry Christmas tree can be totally consumed by fire in three seconds.”