Celebrities pledge to test their Smoke Alarms every week

Celebrities from across the music, showbiz and sporting worlds are backing the Government’s Fire Kills campaign with a "Push It Pledge", to urge people to test their smoke alarm every week.

Coronation Street on-screen sisters, Helen Flanagan and Brooke Vincent (aka Rosie and Sophie Webster), along with a host of other famous faces - including Amir Khan, Ainsley Harriet, Jill Halfpenny, Sir Terry Wogan, Darren Campbell, James Martin, Dave Spikey, Nihal and Bobby Friction - are all making a pledge to test their smoke alarm every week. This is a vital step in helping the nation to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by accidental house fires.

Eighty five per cent of people own a smoke alarm, 1 but worryingly less than a third test them every week.2 This is despite the fact that you are more than twice as likely to die in an accidental house fire if you don’t have a working smoke alarm.1 Just two to three breaths of toxic smoke can render you unconscious, your lungs fill up and you can’t breathe, just like drowning. It’s imperative that a smoke alarm is not only installed in your home, but that it actually works.

Helen Flanagan, who is supporting the campaign, said:

"At home, we’ve been guilty of not testing our smoke alarms as regularly as we should, but this campaign has made me realise how important it is to take just a few seconds every week to push the button and ensure our alarms are working. It’s scary how quickly a house fire can spread and in so many cases, it’s the smoke alarm that can make the difference between someone being able to escape in time, or not. We will be testing our smoke alarms every week from now on."