Fire Kills (found "Make your plan. Get out alive." public information films; 2002)

One of the screengrabs from the original campaign.

Status: Found

Date found: 28 July 2022

Found by: Loogi Baloogi

Fire Kills is a long-running campaign made with the intent of educating the general public on fire safety. Over the years they have produced a range of public information films, one of which being the infamous "Make your plan. Get out alive" spot.

Aired in 2002, this particular campaign, commonly referred to as "Night Vision", became notorious for its grim nature. Throughout this PIF, a set of individuals are put into distressful situations in which a fire happens in their homes. Because of its subject matter, the PIF led to a few complaints from the general public, particularly from parents whose children were terrified.

Overview

The full readily-available campaign follows three separate situations of a few individuals involved in a house fire; a pair of siblings in panic in their bedroom, an elderly lady begging for help banging her front door, and a student injuring himself from a bicycle left in the hallway. Each of the segments has a tagline informing the viewers what they should do if a fire occurs in their homes.

Alongside the full advertisement, there existed shorter adverts that feature an extended take from each of the three segments. For these spots, they included additional shots and dialogue, alongside statistics of deaths involving house fires.

Availability

While the full advertisement is easily viewable online, the extended takes of the segments shown in the full advert are said to be more obscure. Despite this, before higher quality rips of the advertisements were found, two of the shorter spots were available on YouTube featuring slightly alternative scenes of the siblings and the student.

On July 28th, 2022, the PSA/PIF Youtube channel Loogi Baloogi uploaded higher quality versions of both the "Kids" Variant and the "Student" Variant, and for the first time, the "Old Lady" Variant. Loogi obtained the missing variant and the two higher quality versions from Dexter Ginn and David Jennings, the art director and copywriter of the PIF respectively.

Furthermore, there have been claims of an alternative version of the full advert, having red text instead of white and a much vaguer message towards the end. With both elements having been used for the shorter PIFs, it is likely said that this was the original version of this PIF, especially given the fact the campaign prompted complaints from the general public. However, this can be a case of the Mandela effect regarding its existence.

Gallery

The original campaign.

The short advertisement focusing on the children.

The short advertisement focusing on the student falling over his bicycle.

The short advertisement focusing on the old woman behind her locked door.