Law may snuff out fire hazards

Laws have been passed in 22 states to require cigarettes that will burn out soon after they're no longer being smoked.

But in Oklahoma, there's nothing to keep an unattended cigarette from continuing to burn and possibly igniting a fire.

State Rep. Joe Dorman hopes to change that with legislation to make Oklahoma the 23rd state to require fire-safe cigarettes. Eight states also have legislation pending this upcoming legislative session, according to The Coalition for Fire Safe Cigarettes.

"It only makes sense to hold tobacco companies to a higher standard, just as we do with automobile and toy manufacturers,” said Dorman, D-Rush Springs.

Smoking materials account for 4 percent of the fires reported nationally in homes, according to statistics from the National Fire Protection Association. But they lead to 24 percent of the deaths from house fires, statistics show.

In 2007, in Oklahoma City, 364 of 3,276 house fires were attributed to smoking.

In 2003, coalition statistics show more than 25,000 structure fires caused by cigarettes, which killed 760 people and injured 1,520 others.

Cigarettes are the top cause of residential fire fatalities nationwide and contribute to as many as 900 deaths each year, the coalition said.

Paul Silverstein, founder of the Paul Silverstein Burn Center at Integris Baptist Medical Center, said the country has been late to wake up to the fire danger cigarettes can pose.

He said the technology has existed for decades to make fire-safe cigarettes and that it's the norm in countries in Europe and in Canada.

But because of resistance from tobacco companies, the movement has been slower to get off the ground here, Silverstein said.

"People are becoming more aware ... that this is a controllable thing,” Silverstein said.

The fire-safe cigarette puts itself out when left unattended.

The technology used by cigarette manufacturers wraps cigarettes with two or three bands of less-porous paper that act as "speed bumps” to slow burning.

When one of these cigarettes is left unattended, the burning tobacco will self-extinguish when the flame reaches one of the speed bumps, presumably before the cigarette would have time to catch anything else on fire.

While cigarette companies have fought this change nationally, some are getting on board voluntarily as more states pass legislation requiring the fire-safe products.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company officials have said they plan to use fire-safe paper for all of their cigarettes by the end of 2009, regardless of the patchwork of state regulation.

"R.J. Reynolds is working closely with its paper suppliers to help meet the anticipated demand,” it says on the company's Web site.

"Production capabilities are being modified and expanded in order to be able to supply the quantity of (fire-standards compliant) paper required to support national distribution on all