Fire Crews Tell Smokers To Put It Out!

23 May 2012, 06:00

Fire crews have launched a campaign in St Albans called Put It Out.

It's to draw attention to the dangers of smoking indoors and the fact that poorly discarded cigarettes is the most common cause of property fires in the UK. Statistics indicate that a fire is started by a cigarette every three days.

Trevor Brown, the station controller in St Albans told Heart he knows of two recent fires that started this way that have killed two people locally. 

To help smokers stub out, fire crews have been out in the city handing out free ashtrays.

Trevor says they will also be telling smokers about heat detectors as they have found most smokers tamper with their smoke alarm:

"So you can imagine as a smoker, the last thing you want when having a cigarette relaxing is the smoke detector keeps going off, so what they'll do is either take the battery out of them, cover them up or take them down"

The campaign is only a pilot at the moment but it’s expected to be rolled out throughout the rest of the county later this year