El Paso fire department officials told KFOX 14 there's a reason many homes are a total loss even before they arrive.

It's shopping season and on most wish lists are electronics, but officials with the El Paso Fire Department said those electronics can actually cause a fire to spread even faster. It's called a flash over.

"Everything igniting at the same," said Inspector John Concha of the El Paso Fire Department, defining a flash over.

Video from youtube.com shows what a controlled flash fire looks like.

The national average for fire departments to respond to a fire is four and a-half minutes. El Paso firefighters match that or do better, but as the video shows, in just 32 seconds, the entire living room is engulfed in flames.

"Once a building or a home is burning in a flashover stage, it's unsurvivable by even a firefighter, even with all our gear," said Concha.

That means the home is a total loss, which has been the case with several of the nearly 150 fires in El Paso this year.

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 40 years ago it would take nearly 20 minutes for a home to burn, and that time is now 82 percent shorter. Concha said the problem starts with how homes are furnished.

"Furniture, curtains, materials, TVs, audio equipment. Everything you notice that's plastic," said Concha.

Ruth Solis has lived in her central El Paso home for six years, and just as Concha warned, in every room there's a TV. Solis is clueless to there being a fire hazard.

"Not really," answered Solis, when asked if she knew they could be dangerous.

Concha said then there's the issue of how we keep all those electronics powered.

"There's only two here," said Solis as she takes KFOX 14 on a tour of the outlets in her house.

While Solis only has one thing plugged into each outlet, Concha said many people overload their sockets, which could also assist in causing that flash over effect. Concha said the key to beating the flashover effect is smoke detectors.

"They were installed when the house was fixed," said Solis, as she showed a smoke detector in every room of her home.

Concha said while the rule used to be just have a smoke detector in the house, the department is now recommending smoke detectors in every single room, so even if the home's a loss, everyone can get out safe. Ideally, Concha would like to see everyone have a sprinkler system.

"Home sprinklers are very inexpensive during construction," said Concha.

Concha said how homes are now built today also plays a role in how fast fires are burning. He said with them being energy efficient, it keeps air sealed up, and many times it delays the time for people to even notice the fire -- again noting the importance of having a working smoke detector.