The Mosgiel Volunteer Fire Brigade recently handed out metal buckets for households to store ashes from their fireplaces.
Senior Station Officer Scott Lanauze said fires resulting from hot ashes recently led to the station giving away buckets to raise some awareness about winter fire safety techniques.
"Given that ashes take up to five days before they cool you need to cool your ash before you stash.
"You do that by using a metal bucket to put your hot ashes in."
He said the heat could take up to five days to dissipate and could start fires in the meantime.
"It’s significant really when you think about where people store their rubbish bins; generally it’s against the house."
In the past, people had lost their wheelie bins to hot ashes and grass and hedges in surrounding areas to where ashes had been dumped had also been burnt, he warned.
SSO Lanauze said as winter approached, it was important for people to consider fire safety when heating their homes by making sure their chimney was swept, fire alarms were working and multi-plugs were not overloaded — especially in university flats.
Resene had supported the nationwide initiative by donating metal buckets.
