Featured Image Credit: SWNS
Topics: Halloween
Jess Hardiman
Horrifying footage shows how a child’s Halloween costume can catch fire in a matter of seconds, with people being warned to take care with flammable materials around open flames this month.
Whether you’re five or 95, many of you LOVE getting dressed up at Halloween, plastering your face in over-the-top stage makeup or donning creepy coloured contact lenses for that playfully sinister, over-the-top look that you can only get away with at this time of year.
But Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service have warned how flammable costumes can pose a serious hazard at this time year, sharing a shocking video of an outfit going up in flames in just seconds.
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The clip shows a fire fighter setting fire to a child’s witch costume, which in turn is engulfed in flames almost instantly.
The service wrote on Facebook: "With Halloween just around the corner, have you got your costume?
"This International Product Safety Week, we're reminding everyone to take care with flammable costumes around open flames."
Other emergency services across the country have also echoed this sentiment, urging the public to take care around open flames and double check the fire safety labels of their costumes.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Leon Parkes, of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, said: “Parents should check Halloween costumes meet the required safety standard and are always kept away from naked flames."
As fancy dress costumes are classified as toys, they are not subject to the same safety standards as standard clothes.
Back in 2015, TV presenter Claudia Winkleman shared the harrowing story of how her daughter Matilda’s Halloween costume was accidentally burnt.
She went on to advocate for stricter rules, saying: “I would like parents on Halloween to think about what they’re going to put their kids in because I didn’t, and it cost us.”
Matilda spent a month in hospital after the incident, with Claudia and her husband Kris Thykier praising the NHS at the time for the ‘extraordinary’ care their daughter received.
Speaking to Best magazine in 2017, Winkleman admitted she doesn’t like Halloween, after it turned out their screams were ‘real’.
“She ‘went up’ is the only way I can describe it – it was a spark, and she screamed out for me,” she said, adding: “It was like those horrific birthday candles that you blow out and they come back. It was really fast. It was definitely life-changing for me.
“I was talking to somebody and then I heard her shout and she was on fire. It feels like she was on fire for hours, but the surgeon said it was probably just seconds.”