Halloween fancy dress outfits burned and melted in less than two minutes when they were tested.

Now Cornwall Trading Standards and Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service are warning parents and carers to be careful about the costumes they dress their children in for their celebrations this weekend.

Five locally-bought outfits were tested and two of the outfits – typical pretty dresses with billowing net and polyester fabrics, layers and trailing fabric – burned and melted in just two minutes, and a black polyester hat with green artificial polyester hair burned within seconds.

The two fancy dress outfits for boys, a bat costume and a knight, both lit easily then burned and melted in less than two minutes.

Most distressing was an orange striped cotton pumpkin- style outfit for a 18-24 month old which burned within seconds. 

A spokesman said: ‘At this age babies are curious, crawling around and investigating and the speed at which the outfit was engulfed in flames is horrifying.’

Both services are warning parents and carers to only buy costumes from reputable sources which are manufactured to a high safety standard. Most outfits are currently tested to CE toy product safety standards. Check for ‘flame resistant’ labels and read warning labels. 

‘We want to encourage all parents and carers to dress their children safely this Halloween,’ said Geoff Brown, Cornwall Council’s cabinet member for communities.

You can view the results of the tests on the fancy dress costumes on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/

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Fire service watch manager Andy Jones added: ‘Please supervise your children at all times as lanterns, candles, tea-lights in pumpkins and sparklers can all be lethal to children. We would advise using torches or glow sticks instead.’