Electrical Fire Safety Week

The government's Fire Kills campaign and Fire and Rescue Services joined forces with the Electrical Safety Council for Electrical Fire Safety Week, which ran from 24th - 30th September 2012.

During the week we ran a number of awareness events to help people identify the simple things they can do to make their homes safer.

Children's poster competition

To get children involved with Electrical Fire Safety Week, we launched a children’s poster design competition.  Children of primary level school age (4-11 years old) can enter the competition by designing a poster, using ‘electrical safety around your home – dos and don’ts’ as their theme, and using safety messages and other resources from our switchedonkids website.

The winning poster will feature on our new Switchedonkids electrical home safety checklist, which encourages children to carry out a home safety check with their parents or carers to raise awareness of electrical safety around their home.  

The children will also have the opportunity to win prizes for themselves and their schools.  

The competition runs from 12 September – 9 November.  Full details can be found on our switchedonkids website.

Visiting shopping centres

During the week, we will visited shopping centres in Brighton (Churchill Square) and Newcastle (Metro Centre) to talk to people about the basic electrical safety hazards in their homes.

Visitors to our stand were invited to complete a circuit of our giant 'buzz wire' game - with the fastest time each day winning a prize. Local Councillors, MPs and representatives from East Sussex and Tyne & Wear Fire and Rescue Services also joined us to talk to people about their experiences and the simple steps they can take to improve electrical safety in their homes. 

This activity follows similar events in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol and we hope to visit more cities over the coming months.