New smoke alarm campaign stars our firefighters

A startling one third of the residential fires we responded to last year didn’t have smoke alarms installed.

So we’ve launched a new behaviour change campaign to share a familiar message about smoke alarms, only this time, our very own firefighters are at the forefront, helping to inform the public.

The idea behind the campaign is that firefighters don’t like movies with fires in them because they don’t often show the reality of a house fire, and the devastating impacts that can follow.

The ad follows Senior Firefighter Aaron Jackson, showing what he’s experiencing in the aftermath of responding to a fatal house fire, and how different this is to what’s shown to the public by Hollywood.

Aaron shares, “When I read the script I could see that they hadn’t skimped on reality – it’s a very real script.

“As well as the smoke alarms story, I also wanted to help share that for firefighters, it has to be our best day on someone’s worst day. I really considered it a privilege to be given an opportunity like this to represent and give voice to the brothers and sisters from Fire and Emergency,” says Aaron.

The ad also stars Senior Station Officer David Wood, Senior Firefighters Raymond Cowley, Chris Petrie and Tobi Noble, and National Advisor Fire Risk Management Pete Gallagher.

National Manager Community Readiness and Recovery Steve Turek says, “It has been so meaningful to have our l people sharing such a real message with the public. We’re grateful to everyone that was involved.”

The campaign will appear across TV, video on demand, radio, print, online and social media, so make sure you keep an eye out for these.

The more we get these messages out, the more we can encourage smoke alarm installations in homes. As part of Fire and Emergency, you are a key advocate in encouraging New Zealand communities to install smoke alarms. We’ve developed resources to help share our messages which are available here.

Our TV ad will also be available in te reo, and in English with te reo subtitles.

DCE Service Delivery Kerry Gregory and DCE Office of the Chief Executive, Raewyn Bleakley were at the set of the ad while it was being filmed and wanted to give you a behind the scenes look into the campaign. Check it out below.