New unattended cooking campaign, commentated by Grant Nesbitt shows a race to the flames

One in four house fires start in the kitchen, and unattended cooking is the leading cause of New Zealand house fires. To spread this message near and far we have created a 30 second video including different characters to target different demographics.

The video, named distraction stakes race to the flames, is narrated by well-known sports commentator Grant Nisbett, and follows a race of four people who are cooking but get distracted. Their distractions – children, television, phone calls and tiredness – are the leading causes of unattended cooking.

While the video has a comical flair, it has a serious ending, with the final frame of the video reminding viewers to ‘switch off before you walk off’.

It will appear on social media, TVNZ On Demand, YouTube pre-roll ads and on digital billboards between 5pm and 10pm to influence people during the dinner period from 15 April to the end of June.

Some of the people up against each other in the cooking race are our own people, and the filming was closely supervised by our National Fire Risk Manager, Pete Gallagher and Todd O’Donoghue, Risk Reduction and Investigations Manager.

A house fire caused by unattended cooking in the Wellington suburb of Titahi Bay on Saturday 10 April shows just how timely and important the release of the campaign is. Fortunately, smoke alarms alerted the occupant and neighbours to the fire so they were able to escape safely.