CHRISTMAS TREES CAN BE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. 圣诞树可能暗藏危险

陈小将

From their earliest days, Christmas trees have been fire hazards. Before electric lights were introduced, many families set open candles on their trees to illuminate them, which meant that each Christmas morning, the newspapers included stories of homes going up in flames when the branches ignited. Even when families abandoned the obvious hazard of open flames on the trees, the conifers could still cause major trouble once they dried out. In Philadelphia in 1878, Christmas trees caused two fires on the same street, first when a gas jet ignited a tree in a brownstone, then later that day when a dressmaker’s in-store tree went up. Today, trees can still pose a hazard if they are allowed to dry out.
打从一开始，圣诞树就一直是火灾隐患。在引进电灯以前，许多家庭都是把蜡烛放在圣诞树上点亮，这意味着每个圣诞节早晨，报纸上都会有因圣诞树枝被点燃而导致家中起火的新闻。即使人们不在圣诞树上放点燃的蜡烛，针叶树在干枯后仍然会引发大麻烦。在1878年的费城，圣诞树曾在同一条街上引发了两场火灾，先是一盏煤气灯点燃了一幢褐色砂石房屋内的一棵圣诞树，晚些时候一家裁缝店内的圣诞树又着火了。时至今日，如果放任圣诞树不管让其干掉，依然可能引发火灾。