Sweden has a concrete vision that no one should have to die or be seriously injured by residential fires. But the number of people affected has not dropped. Every year, about 23 000 residential fires break out in Sweden. December and January are the most affected months, the amount of fires increase by 40 %. Stress makes us react instead of act and in such situations, children frightened by smoke, fire and screeching fire detectors might run and hide instead of heading for the exit. As one of the largest insurance companies in Sweden Trygg-Hansa has expertise and statistics from many years and wanted to develop their focus on fire safety and prevention. With the objective to potentially save lives, how could Trygg-Hansa increase awareness around fire safety in Sweden and get people on a broader scale to perform a fire drill, wherever you live in Sweden?

We approached national and local media and launched ‘Playing with Fire’ on social and digital channels in December, prior to the time of the year when there’s an increased risk of house fires by 40 %.

We invited two families to try ‘Playing with Fire’. The experiment was made into a case film which was also published on social media to further explain the initiative and describe the issue. VR-cardboards were distributed for free to children all over Sweden.

We were able to scale up the initiative by involving Trygg-Hansa employees as volunteers. An ongoing activity in which co-workers still visit schools all over Sweden to educate children on fire safety and distribute VR-cardboards. The Swedish fire department has approached us as they want to use ‘Playing with Fire’ in their own preventative work. We plan to translate ‘Playing with Fire’ into multiple languages.