Dry trees can make for an unfortunate holiday season and the Great Falls Fire Rescue demonstrated just that.
GFFR placed a recliner, an end table, a garbage can, and a two-week-old, dry Christmas tree in a trailer and lit a piece of trash in the can on fire.
Heavy black smoke eventually filled the trailer and the tree went up in flames.
According to GFFR, while watering a tree is important, making sure smoke detectors are up and running is even more important in preventing a tragic situation.
"On our demonstration here, when we ignited the fire in the trash can there was, within thirty seconds, there was enough smoke to set off the smoke detector and alert the occupants," Captain Nolan Eggen said. "And it would have been pretty much a non-event, just a trash can fire, but it didn’t take long before the conditions were un-survivable."