In one of the campaign’s most eye-catching achievements, construction giant Willmott Dixon issued a checklist to 3,000 staff to help them check the fire door nearest to them and report any concerns to the building manager.
The number of organisations backing the campaign – 174 – rose by more than a third year on year and was up almost 300% on the inaugural campaign in 2013. Supporters included housing and construction companies, fire and rescue services and a variety of businesses involved in the fire door supply chain.
The event also won the backing of Fire Minister Brandon Lewis MP, Ann Jones in the Welsh Assembly Government, the Government’s chief fire and rescue adviser, Peter Holland CBE, and Dan Daly, assistant commissioner for fire safety at London Fire Brigade.
Press coverage about Fire Door Safety Week reached an estimated 2.1 million people, while 18 items of radio and TV coverage, which featured interviews with London Fire Brigade, Peter Holland and householders affected by fire door problems, reached 4.6 million people on the campaign’s first day alone.
Fire Door Safety Week received 1,896 mentions and retweets on Twitter and reached 2.1 million on social media overall.
The Fire Door Safety Week website, meanwhile, attracted more than 5,000 visits.
The campaign, which is organised by the British Woodworking Federation, BWF-Certifire Scheme and Fire Door Inspection Scheme in partnership with the Government’s Fire Kills campaign, seeks to raise awareness of the critical role fire doors play in saving lives and protecting property and promote best practice in installation and maintenance.
Running from 26 September to 2 October Fire Door Safety Week focused on HMOs and blocks of flats this year. There were 39,600 dwelling fires in Great Britain in 2013-14, the equivalent of 108 fires in homes every day.
Research published by the organisers during Fire Door Safety Week revealed that just a third of the lowest income households renting flats say they have been given information on the emergency fire plan for the building where they live, compared to 88% of tenants on annual incomes exceeding £100,000.
And BWF-Certifire led calls for national register of responsible persons – property owners or managers who are legally responsible for fire safety in a given building – during the campaign.
IFSEC Global also published the dodgy fire door gallery 2016 and secret footage of dodgy fire doors, both courtesy of Theodore Firedoor.
The campaign’s other achievements and events included:
Campaign spokesperson Hannah Mansell in the radio studio
“We are delighted with the reach of the campaign,” said Hannah Mansell, BWF Technical Manager and campaign spokesperson. “There was a real buzz, and by the time we factor in the reach achieved by our supporters’ own communications and other organisations’ newsletters, we are confident we will have reached well over the 10 million mark by the end of the year.
“This year we wanted to look at fire safety in flats as well as buildings where there is a lot of shared accommodation, like homes in multiple occupation. These are often homes for the people with the fewest choices about where they live and the least opportunity to move.
“What we found is that there are massive fire door safety issues still remaining in buildings where we house some of our most vulnerable residents and where it is difficult to evacuate people quickly.
“Our research shows that the poorest in society continue to be at greatest risk from fire, and everything we see and hear about on a daily basis amounts to what can only be described as a widespread dereliction of duty by those responsible for fire safety.
“Fire door safety is not just about one week a year. This is why we are encouraging a proactive approach to embedding fire safety awareness into all areas, launching a year of fire door safety in 2017. We will be doing more to draw attention to fire door safety throughout the whole year, as well as seeking to promote and celebrate those building owners, organisations and landlords who genuinely take their legal and moral duties seriously.”
Next year’s campaign will run from Monday 25 September to Sunday 1 October 2017.
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