Success this Chimney Fire Safety Week

Thank you to everyone who helped us to support Fire Kills’ Chimney Fire Safety Week 2022. The campaign week, which started on the 29^th August, was a great success with more Fire and Rescue Services, Local Authorities, and Trading Standards as well as registrants engaging with the campaign this year.

Hundreds of you made use of the campaign assets and we saw a big increase in the number of UK Fire and Rescue Services, using the resources for their social media channels, including National Fire Chiefs Council.

We hope to build on the success of this campaign and the engagement with Fire and Rescue Services during January – March 2023. Given that these three months have again been identified as the peak season for chimney fires, so it’s very important that we continue to push the message of chimney and stove safety to consumers.

Not only did we see great engagement across socials, but we also saw huge increases in website stats. HETAS website sessions for this year’s campaign compared to 2021 were up by 91%, and pageviews were up by a massive 113%. We also saw similar success on the Woodsure website, with sessions up by 101%, and pageviews up 64% when compared to Chimney Fire Safety Week 2021.

This success would not have been possible without your support, so we appreciate everyone who engaged with Chimney Fire Safety Week and continues to share the important campaign messages.

In England, a total number of 2,608 chimney fires occurred from April 2021 to March 2022. This number has declined by 16% compared to last year. The Welsh Government has recently published their fire statistics for the same period; there were 300 chimney fires throughout Wales, with a decrease of 10% compared to the previous year. This is the lowest number in the time series. Both Mid and West Wales and South Wales saw an increase of 2%, however, North Wales saw a decrease of 24% in the number of chimney fires. Scotland will publish their statistics in the coming months.

As we enter the heating season, it is vitally important that we all continue to share the important messages about chimney fire safety. Keep an eye on the HETAS social media channels for regular safety messages.

To find out more about becoming a HETAS Approved Chimney Sweep click here, or contact the team on schemes@hetas.co.uk.