Fire Risk of a Watered vs Unwatered Christmas Tree

We've all heard the recommendations to keep your Christmas tree watered. But how important is it? We put some real trees to the test to show just how quickly (or not) a tree can ignite and become consumed. Of the three in our test, one tree was continuously provided water and never allowed to dry out. One tree was given water but allowed to dry out in between waterings. And the final tree was dried out and not given water for 3.5 weeks.

Additional things to consider as related to this experiment:

1. We did not test specific ignition scenarios. We simply demonstrate what happens to the tree when it is exposed to flame.

2. Materials that are inclusive of fire-retardant material (such as the make-shift tree skirt in the video) still will burn and melt.

3. Decorations can sometimes be more combustible than the (watered) tree itself.

   
   

Interesting points to note: the dry tree was almost completely consumed within 1 minute and 30 seconds. The semi-watered and fully-watered tree took over six and eight minutes respectively to self-extinguist with the watered tree burned mostly around the decorations.

When the test was run on the trees individually, it becomes more clear that the need for constant water is extremely important.