The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has come under fire for suggesting couples shouldn’t cook on Valentine’s Day.
In a tweet, the LFB suggested couples should avoid cooking as it may be unsafe to do so despite the special occasion.
They said: “What are your Valentines Day plans? If you're planning on having a few drinks, it's safer to avoid cooking. Propose ordering a takeaway instead – just one moment of distraction could cause a fire.”
Despite the honest advice, many Brits took to Twitter to mock the LFB for their advice.
One person said: “This is an embarrassing tweet. Who runs your social media?”
Martin Ogle added: “So out of interest, how many fires do you get called out to each Valentine's Day and how many of them were due to romantic couples forgetting about their meal?”
So out of interest, how many fires do you get called out to each Valentine's Day and how many of them were due to romantic couples forgetting about their meal?
— Martin Ogle (@MartinOgle1) February 14, 2022
Another user said: “You're six weeks too early for April Fool's Day. Was this a dare?”
After sparking a fierce debate on social media, the LFB attempted to clear up the tweet with a subsequent string of posts.
They said: “We’re getting a lot of responses on our tweet advising people that it’s safer not to cook if you’ve been drinking alcohol.
“It might seem obvious advice, so let us explain - we say this with LOVE.
“Last year we attended 1,805 cooking fires & have been called to almost 760 over the last 5 years in February, with the majority caused by cooking left unattended.
“On Saturday a woman was taken to hospital after being rescued from a fire caused by cooking.”
They also said one in three people who died from fires in 2019, had alcohol in their system.
The LFB also reported there had been 600 fires involving alcohol in the last five years, while 260 were caused by candles in 2021.
They concluded: “This advice applies to everyone – we certainly never mentioned that it was a man or a woman doing the cooking.
“Whilst we might be reinforcing it on Valentine’s Day, our advice is the same all year around.”
We’re getting a lot of responses on our tweet advising people that it’s safer not to cook if you’ve been drinking alcohol. It might seem obvious advice, so let us explain - we say this with LOVE 💕 pic.twitter.com/jfSB0JWbDI
— London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) February 14, 2022
