Fire Door Safety Week ‘best yet’
1st November 2016

Organisers of this year’s Fire Door Safety Week have declared it the most successful to date with almost double the reach of last year and four times the supporters it has at its launch in 2013.

The event reached more than 8.8million people through TV, radio and social media and now co-organiser the British Woodworking Federation is calling for 2017 to be made ‘Year of Fire Door Safety. This year’s campaign achieved the active involvement of 174 organisations, including housing and construction companies, fire and rescue services, and a wide range of businesses involved in the fire door supply chain.

The campaign, which ran from 26 September – 2 October, was organised by the BWF, the BWF-Certifire Scheme and the Fire Door Inspection Scheme, in partnership with the Government's safety campaign Fire Kills.

Events and achievements during the campaign included:

• A housing association in Sidcup agreed to replace 40-year old damaged front doors with proper fire doors after sustained lobbying by a resident and publicity from the campaign;
• Major contractor Willmott Dixon issued a checklist to 3,000 staff to enable them to check the fire door nearest to them and report any concerns to the building manager;
• A sculpture made from confiscated fire door wedges was unveiled at a BWF-hosted reception to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London and was donated to London Fire Brigade;
• Arnold Laver organised a CPD-accredited fire door safety day with Merseyside Fire & Rescue, Lorient, Vetrotech and dormakaba;
• Lorient also organised its own fire door safety event for its customers;
• LABC organised a CPD-accredited seminar for building control professionals, architects and builders;
• London Fire Brigade partnered with BWF-Certifire to run a training day for more than 80 of the capital’s fire safety officers, and a similar training day was organised by Nottingham Fire & Rescue, focusing on the design and installation of fire doors;
• The Association for Specialist Fire Protection organised a fire protection roundtable debate featuring leading names from the world of fire;
• A community safety team from Hampshire Fire & Rescue went out to advise business owners in Cascades Shopping Centre and surrounding stores;
• BWF-Certifire launched its updated Best Practice Guide with new editions for architects, building contractors, loft conversion companies and housebuilders, and also launch a new poster for landlords to use to promote contact details for the Responsible Person.

The dates for next year’s campaign have been set for Monday 25 September to Sunday 1 October.

www.firedoorsafetyweek.co.uk