Record Fire Door Safety week
6th November 2018

Fire Door Safety Week reached a new high this year, gaining support from more than 350 individuals, organisations and businesses, and reaching millions through press coverage and social media activity.

Organisers say this year’s campaign was particularly successful online, where the Fire Door Safety Week website traffic increased by 44% to nearly 30,000 visits to date. On Twitter, posts sharing vital campaign messages reached over 1.5 million users and the hashtag #FireDoorSafetyWeek achieved 500,000 impressions through user engagement which resulted in more than 550 mentions and 1,000 retweets.

As part of the campaign, a poll of 1,000 UK adults in rented accommodation showed there is still much more to do to ensure that standards within the industry are raised.

“The shocking responses showed that only a quarter of tenants have been reassured or had discussions with their landlord about fire safety in their building,” say organisers, “With so little done to address the concerns of tenants, landlords still have a long way to go meet their fire safety responsibilities.

“In addition, almost three quarters of flat tenants would ignore the guidance to ‘stay put’ if there was a fire in their building and their particular flat was not affected, indicating a lack of confidence in their building’s ability to stop the spread of fire or smoke.”

A series of five powerful films formed part of the week, one of which was a tribute to the victims, survivors and bereaved of Grenfell. So far, the films achieved over 5,000 plays.

The week is run by the British Woodworking Federation (BWF), the Fire Door Alliance and the Fire Door Inspection Scheme, in partnership with the Home Office’s National Fire Safety campaign. It aims to stamp out the legacy of neglect of fire doors across the UK, while raising awareness of the crucial role that fire doors play in protecting lives.

“But even with this year’s reach and engagement, it’s clear that our work is not done. It’s easy to see that fire doors remain an area of neglect across the UK, with poorly installed and maintained doors regularly reported to us.

“Over the next 12 months, the BWF will continue to raise awareness of the lifesaving role of fire doors and importance of third-party certification to help improve building fire safety as we move into 2019 and begin planning for next September’s campaign.”

www.firedoorsafetyweek.com