Smoking and Home Fire Safety

The place where we feel safest — at home — is where most smoking-materials structure fires, deaths, and injuries occur. Smoking materials are the leading cause of fire deaths. Smoking material fires are preventable.

Smoking safety

• If you smoke, use only fire-safe cigarettes.
• If you smoke, smoke outside. Most deaths result from fires that started in living rooms, family rooms and dens or in bedrooms.
• Keep cigarettes, lighters, matches, and other smoking materials up high out of the reach of children, in a locked cabinet.

Put it out!

• Use a deep, sturdy ashtray. Place it away from anything that can burn.
• Do not discard cigarettes in vegetation such as mulch, potted plants or landscaping, peat moss, dried grasses, leaves or other things that could ignite easily.
• Before you throw away butts and ashes, make sure they are out, and dousing in water or sand is the best way to do that.

Smoking and medical oxygen

Never smoke and never allow anyone to smoke where medical oxygen is used. Medical oxygen can cause materials to ignite more easily and make fires burn at a faster rate than normal. It can make an existing fire burn faster and hotter.

Smoking alert!

• To prevent a deadly cigarette fire, you must be alert. You won’t be alert if you are sleepy, have taken medicine or drugs that make you drowsy or have consumed alcohol.
• Never smoke in bed.

# The risk of dying in a home structure fire caused by smoking materials rises with age.

# One out of four fatal victims of smoking-material fires is not the smoker whose cigarette started the fire.

Source: NFPA