Since the month of December begins, when the Christmas holidays begin, homes, businesses and streets are illuminated with colorful Christmas lights; However, this also increases the risk of fire or short circuit due to misuse of outlets and electrical connections.
According to the information provided by the Huancayo Fire Department N°30, since the beginning of the Christmas holidays the entire unit has been under a state of alert. “Clandestine connections can be a time bomb, we are alert to attend to emergencies, but if they happen simultaneously it will be almost impossible to attend to all of them. Let’s be aware to have a peaceful Christmas,” said the unit’s captain, Lady Carmona.
Another concern is shopping centers, galleries and markets, which tend to be supplied with Christmas merchandise by placing them even outside their premises, reducing and obstructing evacuation routes.
Prevention and correcting risks
For its part, the company Electrocentro made a series of recommendations to avoid risks of short circuits, fires or electrocutions.
Among what they emphasize most is that Christmas lights or any other decoration that works with electricity should not be on for more than 5 hours and then put them off for an hour. They also emphasize unplugging the entire device when going to sleep or leaving the house, preventing the lights from overheating.
“Overloading the outlets can cause them to overheat, generating a short circuit and a subsequent fire when flammable elements such as Christmas decorations are around them”said the technical manager of Electrocentro, Juan Aguilar, who clarified that LED technology in lights and decorations is the most recommended since they are safer, or they overheat and consume less energy, avoiding an increase in the electricity bill rate. .
The danger
Finally, the use of fireworks, despite its limitation, continues to be frequent by citizens and is preferred by children and young people. These are also matters of alert for firefighters and personnel from the different hospitals in Huancayo.
Electrocentro recommended that pyrotechnics or metal balloons inflated with helium be used outdoors, avoiding lighting them or placing them under the electrical networks, as they could affect them, causing massive interruptions of the electrical service.
The El Carmen hospital reported that during the 2023 year-end holiday period, they attended to 16 emergencies caused by fireworks in minors, of which 10 resulted in fractures in the fingers of the hands, 1 with a fracture in another part of the the hand, 3 cases of finger amputation and 2 minors resulted in amputations of part of the hand.
The director of the Carrión hospital, Gustavo Llanovarced, stated that care for hand trauma in minors who arrive with muscle, nerve and bone detachment, increasing emergencies of this type by up to 400%.
