Posted By Ron Hunter John, your local Trading Standards Department should have some sage advice on that, although I'm struggling to see where an employer could fall down on this one. The real risks are with the employees pinning the decorations onto the asbestos ceiling tiles, falling from the swivel chair they're standing on and snaggging the extension cable feeding the six sets of old single insulated fairy lights they've brought in from home. Humbug, I say!

Posted By Liz Skelton A sensible approach to risk management should be taken here. When reviewing your fire risk assessment think about where your christmas tree is sited, how many people are in the environment, what decorations you are using. Sending it for tests is a bit OTT! Liz

Posted By Charles Robinson Tech IOSH A search on Europa consumers affairs come up with the follolowing list of items http://ec.europa.eu/cons.../create_rapex_search.cfm

Posted By garyh How would the smoke from one christmas tree fire kill people who are not asleep?? Surely you would not place it where it could set off a larger fire. Keep it in proportion, please.

Posted By Casanova John, I am sure in this day and age you can google the living daylights out of yourself with videos of families incinerated by X-mas trees but I think a bit of perspective is needed here. What would you do at work that you wouldn't do at home. Place it in a walkway, on a flight of stairs? Drape it in paper and any other flammable material you can lay your hands on? Use candles instead of LED low temperature lights? Leave lights on unattended? Roast chestnuts underneath it? Just a little common sense reduce the risk to an absolute minimum. Casanove X PS have a very merry x-mas not a worried one.

Posted By SNS It may be that it was this event which raised the issue of fire retardants on decorations. Sad as it was the main cause of the high death toll was blocked escapes. News report precis: The fire at the harbourside Het Hemeltje cafe in the fishing village of Volendam is believed to have been triggered when revellers lit sparklers which ignited ceiling decorations that had not been sprayed with flame-retardant material. The fire broke out as hundreds of teenagers celebrated the New Year. Mass panic followed after the party goers discovered that all but one of the emergency exits had been blocked preventing their escape