We're right in the middle of Fire Prevention Week 2025, which runs from Sunday, October 5 to Saturday, October 11. So it's a good time to post some vintage ads from Fire Prevention Weeks of years past.
Fire Prevention Week used to really be played up in the newspapers. There were news items about the community outreach efforts made by local fire departments; full page sponsored ads; and individual ads placed by businesses or organizations.
Here's one of the latter from 1950, for Ohio Edison. The ad doesn't feature Reddy Kilowatt, but includes some nice clip art of a young family no doubt getting some fire prevention tips from a fireman. It ran on October 9th, 1950 in the Lorain Journal.
Five years later this ad ran in the newspaper on October 10, 1955, sponsored by the Lorain County Insurance Association. It features some tiny clip art of our pal
Sparky the Fire Dog.
Various insurance organizations sponsored the very effective ad below for Fire Prevention Week 1960.
Five years later on October 4, 1965 this full-page sponsored ad included some non-insurance companies as well.
And ten years later, the clip art style may have changed, but the message was the same in this ad that ran on October 6, 1975. Interestingly,
Smokey Bear was muscling in on Sparky's turf with a meet-and-greet at Midway Mall.
Hopefully these vintage ads with their timeless message will
start a fire under you motivate you to think about fire prevention this week – and every week.
https://youtu.be/o8p1iTQ1ii0?si=J5_SghzC6qbD_J1v
ReplyDeleteIn the 1950s, when some of these advertisements were published, my uncle, Elmer Stough, was the long serving Lorain Fire Chief and, later, the Ohio State Fire Marshall.
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