DID YOU KNOW?

Smoking materials (especially cigarettes) are the leading cause of fire deaths and the third cause of fire injuries in the US and many other countries.

How are smoking materials and fires related? Check out the facts.

Smoking materials (especially cigarettes) are the leading cause of fire deaths and the third cause of fire injuries in the US and many other countries (causes 30% fire deaths in the US and 10% fire deaths worldwide).
In 2003, there were 25,600 Smoking-material structure. These killed 760 people and injured 1,520 others in 2003. In 1999, these fires caused $559.1 million in losses.
Most fires related to smoking occur in the home
Most of the fires caused by smoking materials are the result of a cigarette being abandoned or carelessly disposed.
Mattresses, trash and upholstered furniture are the most commonly ignited items in smoking material fires.
The risk of dying in a residential structure fire caused by smoking materials rises with age.
Did you think you weren't at risk if you're not a smoker? Living with a smoker may be even more dangerous. One-quarter of victims of smoking-material fire fatalities are not the smokers whose cigarettes started the fire: 34 percent are children of the smokers; 25 percent are neighbors or friends; 14 percent are spouses or partners; and 13 percent are parents.
The technology to produce fire-safe cigarettes (that have reduced ignition propensity) has been available for over a decade but the industry claims that smokers don’t like cigarettes that tend to self-extinguish right after each puff. The priority is clear here.
Between 1999 and 2003, almost half (43%) of fatal home smoking-material fire victims were sleeping when injured.

Current tests (National Institute of Standard and Technology) for fire safety can be misleading and give smokers a false sense of security because these tests do not assume that a cigarette that passes the test will be less prone to start a fire in the real world.
Two-thirds of all US reductions in fire fatalities related to smoking from 1984 to 1995 were attributed to reductions in cigarette consumption.

Deaths dues to fires can be avoided. A few tips to avoid smoking material fires are:

Keep smoking material away from anything that can burn
Never smoke in bed
Don’t put ashtrays on the arm of sofas
Use large ashtrays
Empty ashtrays in the toilet
Don’t leave cigarettes unattended
Put out all smoking materials before you walk away
Have a smoke detector at home, check it every month and be sure to change old batteries
Keep matches and lighters away from children

references | updated 10.03.2007

references

The smoking material fire problem. John R. Hall. Fire analysis and research division NFPA. August 2006.
Smoking and fire safety. Living with fire, a program for campus and student fire safety. Retrieved 2003 from http://www.usfa.fema.gov.
Leistikow BN, et al. Fire injuries, disasters, and costs from cigarettes and cigarette lights: a global overview. Prev Med; (2000) 31: 91-99.
Canada Safety Council. Retrieved 2003 from http://www.safety-council.org.
National Fire Protection Association. Retrieved 2003 from http://www.nfpa.org.
Brown and Williamson. Retrieved 2003 from http://www.brownandwilliamson.com.
GASP® Virginia Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public, Inc. Retrieved 2003 from http://www.gasp.org/firesafe.

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