Campfire Safety
CFA (Country Fire Authority)
How do you make serious fire-safety information useful without making it feel like a lecture?
We all love a campfire.
No one likes a bushfire.
For CFA, we created a practical campfire safety campaign designed to help Victorians understand the rules around lighting, supervising and properly extinguishing a fire in the outdoors.
There was a lot of important information to communicate — fire restrictions, wind conditions, safe clearances, fire size, supervision and exactly how to put a campfire out.
Our job was to make all of that clear, memorable and easy to act on.
Using real camping scenarios, a conversational voiceover, a little humour and plenty of visual demonstration, we turned the rules into something people could actually imagine doing on their next camping trip.
The campaign culminates in one very simple message:
If you light it, you own it.
At a glance
1 × 3.5-minute hero film
Multiple vertical social cutdowns
16:9 + 9:16 delivery
Real people / non-actor talent
Day + dusk campfire filming
Voiceover + captions + motion graphics
CFA + Parks Victoria + Scouts Victoria
Web / Social / Public Education
The original production scope called for one 3–4 minute film plus portrait social edits, with accessibility for culturally and linguistically diverse audiences built into the brief.
The Client Breif
CFA needed to communicate the responsibilities and regulations that come with lighting a campfire in Victoria.
The information itself was straightforward but extensive.
People needed to understand when they could light a fire, how weather and Total Fire Ban conditions affect that decision, how to build a campfire, how much space to clear around it, how closely to supervise it, and how to extinguish it properly.
The goal was not simply awareness.
The content needed to influence behaviour.
The key safety messages included checking conditions before lighting a fire, building it correctly, supervising it at all times and using water — not soil or dirt — to extinguish it completely.
Our Approach
Show people what safe actually looks like.
We didn't want the campaign to feel like someone reading a list of regulations.
So we built the film around recognisable camping experiences.
Families setting up camp.
Friends sitting around a fire. Cooking. Toasting marshmallows. Checking the weather. Clearing the ground. Keeping water nearby.
The visuals combine cinematic documentary-style filming with a friendly voiceover and straightforward on-screen messaging. The tone is deliberately conversational — serious enough that the consequences are understood, but light enough that people keep watching.
Serious message. Human delivery.
Campfire safety can quickly become a wall of rules.
So the script uses ordinary language to break the information into memorable actions:
Only light it if you need it.
Check the weather and fire restrictions.
Build it right.
Keep an eye on it.
Put it out properly.
That structure carries the audience through the longer film and gives the campaign a set of clear messages that can also stand alone in shorter content.
The final film now sits within CFA's broader campfire safety information, alongside practical guidance on fire restrictions, construction, supervision and extinguishing.
One campaign. Different attention spans.
The longer film has room to explain the why as well as the what.
The social edits do something different.
Each vertical film concentrates on a smaller behaviour — such as supervision or extinguishing a fire properly — using quick cuts, bold captions and mobile-first framing to get the message across in around 30 seconds.
Rather than simply cropping the master film, the social content was re-shaped for the platform.
That gave CFA both a comprehensive education resource for people actively seeking information and short, direct reminders capable of reaching people in their social feeds.
Making safety visual
What does a three-metre clearance actually look like?
How should someone supervise a campfire?
How much water should be nearby?
What does it mean to stir the ashes and check that no heat remains?
The shoot was carefully structured around these actions, with family and friendship groups filmed across daytime and evening camping scenarios. The production schedule even worked around the fire itself, establishing the campsite before lighting it, then moving progressively through supervision, cooking and extinguishing scenes as conditions changed through the day.
Good instructional content shouldn't just tell people what to do. It should let them see themselves doing it.
The Outcome
The completed campaign brings together public-safety information, real-life demonstration and an approachable tone.
It gives CFA a longer educational resource supported by short social assets — all carrying the same visual language and simple behavioural message.
Because the information is demonstrated rather than merely explained, the content can do something particularly important for public-sector communication: turn a rule into an action people can remember.