The Propensity of Cigarette Smoking in Contributing to Fire Incidences - Essay Example

Propensity of cigarette smoking in contributing to fire incidences Student’s Names Environmental studies Professor University/Institution Location Date Assessment on propensity of cigarette smoking in contributing to fire incidences Globally fire incidences cause 1 percent of injury and death annually and disasters from fire has effect in destroying cities, families, places of work and wild lands1. Available statistics indicate that fire costs approximately 1 percent of gross domestic product in United Kingdom and Japan with almost similar devastating effects to other countries. In United States, fire tolls comprise about 5,000 deaths combined with almost 54,000 hospitalizations in addition to injuries and destruction of properties. In all these cases inappropriate mis-conclusion smoking material in regard to cigarette fires has been reported to be the cause of fire leading to death, both in United Kingdom and United States2. Most importantly to note is that smoker’s households are reported to have nearly five times fire injury cases in compared to non smoker householders. Although reports by Canadian association of fire chiefs projected that cigarette were leading cause of residential fires and fire related death and massive property destruction3, such report were lacked substantial evidence to support the claim. Although most cases of cigarette associated fires in residential houses are normally noted to occur at night or in early morning hours when people are still asleep, there is still lack of convincing data associated with cigarette fires. Weak evidence support cigarette smoking associates it with alcoholism citing cases where impaired smokers may fall asleep improperly disposing their smoldering cigarette. Despite cigarette having potential to ignite surrounding materials smoldering them and resulting to carbon monoxide rich smoke and high toxic gases which render people unconscious placing them at greater risk of fire injury, evidence to support such cases have not been well documented. In most incidences smoke suffocate individuals within surrounding areas even before it reaches the flashover point when it engulfs the whole room with fire. A case where cigarette smoking was inappropriately associated with causing fire was reported where fire investigators had associated smoldering cigarette to have caused fire breakout in aboard ship in Caribbean scorching passengers’ cabins which resulted in fatal injuries, although the attributed fires cause remains unknown4. More than one billion impoverished and progressively debilitated smokers use approximately six trillion cigarettes each year and all these need to be distinguished to avoid fire occurrences if there is evidence that cigarette smoking contributes to fire cases5. Debilitated heavy smokers usually have access to cigarette lighters and matches available for lighting cigarettes, in this case they have to keep them inaccessible to children who may mostly likely start to play with them ending up causing accidental fires. If there is evidence linking fires to smoking cases, normally United States fire administration categorize this kind of fire to one caused by smoking materials and others caused by igniting materials. Specifically if there is satisfying fact associating fire cause to smoking, then the two types of smoking related fires are considered to be caused by behavioral. Moreover, in case of fire there should be enough evidence linking fire source to be ignition by smoking materials and this should be categorized among group of fire where smoking materials were identified as heat source. On the other hand smoking related fire should be considered as unintentionally resulting from fire set by smokers of cigars, cigarettes, and other smoking materials. Particularly this essay discusses on assessment on different natures of fires whose causes were inappropriately related to be caused by careless smoking habits. Cases of fire and explosions wrongly identified to be caused by burning cigarettes, tobacco have been documented in official and medical publications in Europe, United States and Japan with additional tolls of this nature from other countries. In most cases building fires have been categorized into two classes depending on severity with confined fires describing the kind of fires whose nature is confined in given types of equipments and objects. The other type of fires has been classified under non confined fires which are usually not confined within any equipment and objects6. Generally, confined fires are the most popular types of fires where firefighters have concluded to be caused by smoking materials though they lacked supporting proof in most of these cases. Specifically non substantial evidence from people point that this kind of fire is normally caused by smoking materials which is wrongly disposed which may not be the case normally. Although fire explosion of this nature do not result in serious injury and losses given that they do not have significant accompanying property losses resulting from their flame damage, fire fighters and involved people should have enough evidence so as to attribute cigarette smoking to be the cause. Basing this argument on assessment carried on residential building fires cases, the findings indicated that non confined fires are usually larger than non confined fires. Surprisingly most people have always associated these cases with smoking materials although they lack enough prove. Additional inappropriate assessment with no substantial prove based on loss measures from residential fires pointed out that smoking fire was substantially higher than fire resulting from non smoking causes. Besides, the rates of injuries as result of fires in relation to dollar loss, non evidence based assessment indicated that residential smoking fires dollar loss was higher compared to residential non smoking fires7. Further misappropriated assessment signified that cigarettes smoking materials comprised the leading causes of residential smoking fires and they contributed to largest percent while other non smoking materials accounted for few residential cases of smoking fires. In relation to time when residential building related fires occur, reports indicated that most of the fires occurred from noon to late evening making up to the 6 percent. According to assessment from NFIRS they asserted that this type of fires declined throughout the evening to early morning and reached their lowest points during morning hours8. More so the assessment pointed to the period from noon to late evening to have accounted for 42 percent of residential with poor evidence based sources attributing this to smoking based fires sources. Further report indicated that thirty percent of fire spread in residential building is confined to objects of origin such as upholstered chair while thirty five percent of residential fires extended beyond the room of origin. Confined fires as reported by NFIRS contributed only 7 percent of residential fires and the assessment further indicated that these kinds of fires were noted mostly in early evenings and accounted for 10 percent. the above noted cases do not indicate enough evidence to support that all residential fires that were reported during this period were related to smoking cigarette9. Thorough evidence based research should be done when attributing smoking as a cause to residential fires that were recorded in a single instance. According to assessment by National Fire Incident Reporting System 24 percent of non confined residential smoking fires were reported to have originated from bedrooms which were also the same areas where fatal residential fires originated from mostly attributed to. It is wrong to associate this kind of fires to be caused by smoking cigarettes especially if there is no clear evidence based details to that10. Also the report pointing to exterior balconies together with unenclosed porches as the second leading areas where non confined residential fires originated further questions the idea of associating fires with smoking habit even without clear prove to ascertain that. It is inappropriate when studies conclude that, because researchers have found carelessly discarded cigarettes along forests areas they generalize this as main contributors of forest fires. In addition it is wrong for experts to conclude that smokers who usually do not extinguish their cigarettes properly have potential to cause 10 percent of overall wild land fires even without them having convincing data showing this11. A real example of a case is where forest fire was wrongly attributed to have been caused by smoking cigarette was experienced in Alberta. Though the fire caused severe damage with estimated 4.1 million dollar destruction it was inappropriate to associate the cause of this damage to reckless smokers without clear evidence to ascertain that12. Even though a similar case scenario was recorded in China where a massive forest fire attributed to irresponsibly discard smoking material had destroyed 1.3 million hectares of forest land killing 300 thousand people and displacing more than half million of a population, experts should support this with convincing evidence. Presence of cigarette butts discarded irresponsibly to dry grass noted especially along the road should not be considered as prove that fire resulting in nearby park to be caused by smokers. Estimated 12 percent of outside fires are normally caused by cigarettes butts and the condition may be worsened during hot dry season where even the smallest spark has potential of resulting in large fire with ground being dry and windy condition serving to catalyze the combustion mostly recorded in dry grassland. Even though this has a potential to cause fire, such report made by concerned agencies should be backed up with enough evidence statistical data13. Another case where wild land fire was wrongly attributed to cigarette butt was reported in South Africa and was recorded to have killed a hiker, destroying over 500 hectares of land and vast destruction to vegetation. In this case there was lack of clear evidence onto possible causes of this fire given that presence of lots of cigarettes butts along the near roadway was not satisfying evidence to support this case as this was an obvious common practice. Conclusion Forest fires have been identified as significant indicators of pollution with harmful effects to the environment, displacing people, impact on ecology and extending negative effects on farming, local industry by destruction of resources. Although there is shallow evidence that cigarettes smoking materials are among the leading causative agents of residential fire fatalities not only in United States and Europe but worldwide, this kind of evidence need more support and should not be based on assumptions. In addition report by agencies like NFPA showing that careless smoking habits have potential to cause residential fires with loss of life need to be backed up by supportive prove altogether14. Potential of discarded cigarettes butts to cause fire should be recorded by establishing their ability to ignite grassy hay found that butts ignited hay in 33 percent of all cases. In particular smoking materials like butts should be tested for their ignition rate and their speed determined especially when exposed to wind. More studies should be conducted in the streets and residential houses aiming at determining possibility of cigarette butts to cause street fires so as to avoid inappropriate association between smoking cigarettes and fire incidences. References Ahrens, M., 2009. Smoke alarms in US home fires. National Fire Protection Association, Fire Analysis and Research Division. Ballard, J.E., Koepsell, T.D., Rivara, F.P. and Van Belle, G., 1992. Descriptive epidemiology of unintentional residential fire injuries in King County, WA, 1984 and 1985. Public health reports, 107(4), p.402. Chapman, S. and Balmain, A., 2004. Reduced-ignition propensity cigarettes. A review of policy relevant information. Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, p.60. Diekman, S.T., Ballesteros, M.F., Berger, L.R., Caraballo, R.S. and Kegler, S.R., 2008. Ecological level analysis of the relationship between smoking and residential-fire mortality. Injury prevention, 14(4), pp.228-231. Gandhi, S. and Spivak, S.M., 1994. A survey of upholstered furniture fabrics and implications for furniture flammability. Journal of Fire Sciences, 12(3), pp.284-312. Gann, R.G., 2007. Measuring the ignition propensity of cigarettes. In Proceedings of the Interflam Fire Science and Engineering Conference (pp. 145-55). Hall, J.R., 2007. US experience with sprinklers and other automatic fire extinguishing equipment. Quincy, MA: National Fire Protection Association. Helm, T., 2014. Ordeal By Sea; The Tragedy Of The USS Indianapolis. Pickle Partners Publishing. McCormick, A.V., 2009. Residential Fires in Surrey, BC, 1988-2007. Abbotsford, BC, Canada: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of the Fraser Valley. McDonald, E.M., Girasek, D.C. and Gielen, A.C., 2006. Home injuries. Injury prevention for children and adolescents–research, practice and advocacy. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 127. Miller, I., 2005. Human Behaviour Contributing to Unintentional Residential Fire Deaths, 1997-2003. New Zealand Fire Service Commission. Reinhardt, T.E. and Ottmar, R.D., 1997. Smoke exposure among wildland firefighters: a review and discussion of current literature. Stamps, J., 1980. Public Fire Education Planning. A Five Step Process. Tigist, T., 2016. Investigation of Toxicity of Cigarette Butts Collected in Addis Ababa to Swiss Albino Mice (Doctoral dissertation, AAU, 2016). Read More