#EUSmokeAlarmDay 2022: Putting smoke alarm ownership across the EU in the spotlight
November 16th, 2022
The first edition of European Smoke Alarm Day took place on Friday 18th November 2022 as part of the programme of activities for the 4th European Fire Safety Week. The European Fire Safety Alliance and the Federation of European Fire Officers (FEU) launched this joint EU wide awareness campaign online to increase awareness of the need for EU citizens to install smoke alarms in their residential properties and help reduce fire deaths all over Europe. This was the day when we made a concerted effort to put smoke alarm ownership across the EU in the spotlight.
Approximately 5,000 people die from fire in Europe annually. The rate of fire deaths is 5 times higher in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. Most of these deaths occur in domestic properties. In the following countries in Europe there is a legal obligation on homeowners to install smoke alarms in domestic properties, namely, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and UK.
However in other EU countries there is no requirement to do so. As part of our online campaign we produced an interactive map on our website www.smokealarmssavelives.eu and encouraged householders to check it out. We provided additional advice for the installation and maintenance of smoke alarms on our campaign website. We also received video messages of support from fire service leaders and MEP’s in many EU countries. These were uploaded to the campaign website.
The campaign: https://www.smokealarmssavelives.eu/ was supported by Smartwares, Ei Electronics, FireAnghel, Kidde and Euralarm.
In 2023 we orgnizie a second #smokealarmssavelives campaign and continue asking EU politicians to actively support our efforts for more European countries to introduce legislation to make it obligatory to install smoke alarms in domestic properties. This will encourage more European citizens to install smoke alarms in their homes and thus help to save more lives.