A spectacular pan fire demonstration was held in Bradford to start a hard-hitting campaign by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.

The campaign, unveiled at the fire service’s Birkenshaw headquarters, is designed to cut the number of house fires at this time of year.

For the first time, the fire service is targeting students in its winter campaign and has enlisted the help of university student Sorrel Sheppard.

Miss Sheppard, 20, appears in posters with fake burns alongside the slogan “I got first degree burns.”

The second year student said: “I want to promote fire safety to students because it’s an important thing to me.

“I have been living with eight people and our house was never exactly safe to start off with.

“We have got a tiny kitchen with loads of people cooking at the same time so it’s so easy for things to catch fire and our fire alarms weren’t fitted properly when we moved in, which shows how important it is to highlight fire safety to students.”

Brian Robson, senior community safety officer for West Yorkshire fire service, said: “It’s a hard-hitting and hopefully a little bit controversial campaign to try and warn the public of the dangers we come across at this time of year from fire.”

He said some of the biggest contributing factors were candles, smoking indoors, chip pans, electrical equipment and alcohol.

Only last week three people were killed in two separate fires in Bradford.

The cause of the blaze in which a man and a woman died at an attic flat in Cecil Avenue, Great Horton, early last Thursday morning is still under investigation.

A discarded match is believed to have started the blaze that killed 75-year-old Iris Haigh in her home in Moorside Road, Eccleshill, the previous night.

Mr Robson said: “In one of the incidents, we were very quick to give the cause of the fire.

“Sometimes we are a bit tentative in giving causes but on this occasion we wanted to get the message out very quickly that it had been caused by smoking materials and in particular smoking in bed.

“Our advice to everybody is please don’t smoke in bed particularly if you are drowsy or have taken a drink.”