Firefighters' hints and tips on having a safe Bonfire Night

Firefighters in Nottinghamshire are urging people celebrating bonfire night to stay safe and take precautions.

With this year's Bonfire Night display in the city being cancelled, more people are expected to hold their own firework events in their gardens - which experts say could lead to accidents and an increase in callouts for the service.

Station manager Dan Palmer of Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, gave ITV Central some tips on how to have fun, safely.

"It is a good time, it is a time to celebrate and enjoy watching fireworks, but when you have unlicensed events and people aren't so familiar with using fireworks that's where accidents can happen.

"So before you have any event in your garden or wherever it may be around a friend's house just try and put some safety precautions in place before you decide to light that bonfire or before you decide to light that firework.

"You know think about children think about having a means of extinguishing it.

"So it's just having so pre-thought not to ruin people's day but just to make sure that people have thought about the safety concerns."

Firework tips

Mr Palmer one of the main things for them was safety regarding fireworks.

He said: "Make you buy one that have a CE marking on them, because they are registered fireworks. Others could be third party.

"We're trying to advise people to go to organised displays because these displays have been risk assessed and have trained personnel delivering the fireworks.

"Obviously with the financial situation the strain on resources, that there might not be as many organised events so if you are having your own event to make sure when you are setting fireworks off that you keep them away from the house.

"Make sure you keep them away from fences, sheds, trees anything that can really start fires.

"Make sure you have got a way of extinguishing them if there is any sort of emergency situation so buckets of water, hose pipe.

"If you have things like sparklers a bucket of sand or water again. We are trying to advise children under five not to hold sparklers and for adults to wear gloves.

Mr Palmer also said to keep pets away from fireworks and that when people do set them off, never go back once they have been lit.

Bonfires and false alarms

Mr Palmer said the first thing people should do is warn their neighbours that you are having a bonfire

He said: "What ends up happening is there are a lot of bonfires around this time of year and what happens then is we get elevated calls from being false alarms.

"People see fires in the garden and they naturally think that they might be actual fires, calling the fire service out and it's really a non-emergency that we are attending to.

"So it's a great idea to let everybody know you are having a bonfire to save us on having our false alarm calls."

Mr Palmer also called on people to use dry wood to avoid embers flying from the fire and don't use petrol when you start the fire.

"The bonfire should be five times the height of the fire away from the house, so if the fire is a metre high, it should be five metres away from the house just as a rule of thumb.

"It's a real good idea to wet the areas surrounding the fires so it can stop it spreading along the ground, never leave the bonfire unattended and not to throw anything onto the fire."

Enjoy it and stay safe

Mr Palmer said: "We want people to enjoy bonfire night, we just want to make sure people enjoy it safely and that we can keep the calls down to a minimum for the fire service to attend only real emergencies."

Firefighters in the West Midlands were also encouraging people to stay safe.

Area Commander Alex Shapland of West Midlands Fire Service said: "Make sure if you are going to you do it safely you buy fireworks which are legal from a reputable supplier.

"Make sure your garden is big enough there are distances there's lots of rules and regulations around fire works so don't sacrifice safety for having it.

"Ultimately fireworks, they are explosives and there are some real dangers associated with that.

"Make sure you've got a bucket of water or a hose pipe nearby in case anything does happen have fun, but do it safely."