Most people open their closets, flip on a light switch, select their clothes and don’t think about the closet light.

Folded clothes, cardboard boxes, photo albums and paper wrappings are stacked and stuffed onto closet shelves… Not a bad thing unless it’s within inches of an unprotected incandescent light bulb.

Googling ‘surface temperature light bulb’… suggests temperatures can be around 285F degrees for a 60 watt light bulb. Flammable items that are too close to a hot bare bulb light could ignite and burn your house down.

Forgetting to turn off the closet light or changing a burnt out light bulb and replacing it with a 100 watt bulb because you didn’t have a lower wattage bulb are possible scenarios.

Any lighting that you use in your closet needs to be covered or recessed for fire safety. During a recent Pacific Coast Inspections home inspection, clothes were stacked next to a light fixture missing its protective cover. If you have incandescent light bulbs, your safest option is to replace it with a different kind of light fixture or as a minimum replace an incandescent bulb with a CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulb with a low wattage.

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