Edhat Staff
(Photos: Mike Eliason / SBCFD)
By edhat staff
Santa Barbara County’s largest bonfire took place in Solvang this Friday with the 31st annual Christmas tree burn.
County firefighters lit up more than 100 trees for the annual event and approximately 700 locals showed up the Santa Ines Mission to watch the fire show.
While the blaze is fun to watch, firefighters hope this will also be an educational experience, proving it doesn’t take much for Christmas trees to catch fire.
The City of Solvang partnered with firefighters for the event, show it’s one of the largest safety demonstrations in the area.
This was such a fun event, tons of people showed up with their families. The donut food truck was the best…!
It’s a great idea and a teaching lesson about how fast the trees can ignite. Every year homes burn from in house trees burning.
Is it that there isn’t enough demand for mulched Christmas trees, or that it is hard to overcome a tradition that appeals to the fire loving instincts that most of us have? Just imagine if every community did this on the same night across the US? It would be some amazing pictures from space!
In this drought-stricken county, the time has arrived for this torching of now very expensive Christmas trees to end and mulching of all to help the ground retain the scare water we receive from rain.
The fact of the matter is people remain ignorant of the damage caused to their lungs and heart via wood smoke inhalation and the damage caused to clean air every time wood is burned. Ask The Lung Association why wood smoke is deemed a super pollutant.