Cigarettes as a Cause of Fire - Case Study Example

Analysis of cigarettes as a cause of fire: Background of the argument: Cigarettes have largely been referred to as a fundamental source of fire in many fire breakout incidents that have occurred at various places in the world so far, where their identification as the causal factor was altogether unjust. Holding burning cigarette buds responsible for fire breakouts has been used as a way to escape the real cause of fire in many cases simply because the idea seems quite appealing to human psychology that is inclined towards exaggerating the evils associated with the smoking practice. Cigarette haters leave no stone unturned in the way of tarnishing its image in the eyes of public in general. Keeping in mind that people have grown excessively conscious about the health and safety aspects of the products they buy over the years, cigarette criticizers often make an attempt to ruin the market value of various cigarette brands by spreading negative news about cigarettes. According to estimates, 700 fatalities and 3000 injuries occur in US alone every year because of cigarette caused fires. (WALB News, 2010). Smoking materials were accounted for 1 in every 4 deaths in 2007. (DeBellotte, 2010). A typical scenario of fire breakout is indeed, portrayed as having occurred due to a burning cigarette in the hands of a sleeping smoker. Identification of cigarettes as a source of fire breakout in a vast majority of cases certainly appears to play a big role in convincing the public to relinquish the use of cigarettes. The argument here is not to justify the practice of smoking by overlooking its evils that are really existent. Instead, this paper highlights the fact that there is a dire need to rationalize the approach of fire investigators while they investigate the cause of fire in any incident because blind referral to cigarettes as the source of fire potentially hides all other factors that might have a serious role in the breakout of fire. Introduction: A large number of innocent people all over the world happen to be a victim of fire breakouts to their bad fortune every year. A vast majority of cases of fire breakouts recorded in the past have occurred when owners of the property were asleep. “Falling asleep while smoking can ignite clothing, rugs and other materials used in upholstered furniture.” (US Fire Administration, 19). It is an established fact that in a vast majority of fire break out incidents, fire spreads out in no time. The accidents leading to the break out of fire are such that the initial source of fire produces sufficiently large quantity of fire. For example, lighting a cigarette in a room full of gas, or throwing a burning match over spilled patrol. Such acts consume very little time to allow the fire to spread. Whereas fire caused by a burning cigarette when it gets in touch with something takes considerably longer time to spread. It might take up to hours for a cigarette to cause fire. Therefore, cigarettes are potentially a weak source of fire. How cigarettes cause fire: There is no point denying the fact that cigarettes have indeed, been designed in a way that they can be a potential source of fire, though there are certain other factors and conditions that need to accompany a burning cigarette before a fire could break out. Cigarettes own a tendency to cause the fire because it has been a profound goal of the cigarette making companies to design the cigarettes in a way that the buds can sustain ignition for prolonged periods of time. It is indeed, one of the fundamental traits of a good quality cigarette that it has an ability to remain lit without being puffed for a considerably long period of time. Today, there are cigarettes that can remain ignited without been puffed for up to an hour. This has been achieved by altering the chemical composition of the paper with which the cigarette and its filter is made. Life of papers used in making cigarettes can be prolonged in an attempt to make the cigarettes burn longer. “A burning cigarette’s center of gravity shifts as it burns, which may cause it to topple off and ignite the upholstery.” (Jackson and Day, 222). However, a cigarette would never cause fire until conditions in which a cigarette is smoked are favorable to cause and sustain fire. There are two fundamental ways in which a burning cigarette can cause fire. The first necessitates the presence of a source of fuel such as petrol or gas in order for the fire to break out. Gas readily catches fire if a burning cigarette is brought near to it. The second way in which a burning cigarette can cause fire is when it comes in contact with a combustible medium such as wood or paper. However, chances of fire breakout in the second case are not very profound given that cigarettes often create a hole in the paper where the burning tip touches the paper. Once the hole is created, contact between cigarette and the paper is lost. Accordingly, the paper’s susceptibility to catch fire is lost. However, occasionally, a paper catches fire before a hole is created. Again, chances for the fire to spread are rare because a starting fire either gets noticed by a person in the locality, or else the fire is naturally suppressed by excessive wind or rainfall in case, the incident took place in a rubbish heap open to sky. In the first case, fire would never break out even if a cigarette was smoked close to a gas cylinder until the lid was accidentally left opened allowing the gas to escape. In other cases, one has to be careless enough to cause the petrol to spread on the floor in order to let it catch fire when a burning cigarette is thrown upon it. Put it other way, such incidents are rare to happen because the conditions are rarely favorable for a burning cigarette bud to create fire. Two factors play a big role in reducing the tendency of cigarettes to cause fire. First, a burning tip of a cigarette covered with ash is too small a source to cause a fire to break out. In a vast majority of cases, fire in the burning end of a cigarette looses its strength as more time passes in which the cigarette remained unpuffed. Fire in the tip would fade away before a cigarette could cause something to burn after coming in contact with it. In order for such a weakly lit tip of a cigarette to cause fire, the piece of furniture or carpet has to be burnt completely before the fire could spread. It takes so long for this to happen that the fire either gets noticed before causing any damage or else, it finishes before gaining strength owing to the weakness of the source of fire. Secondly, such a small scale fire would not survive the breeze until the conditions support the ignition. Situations in which cigarette was considered the source of ignition: Fire broke out in the Star Princess belonging to the Princess Cruises in 2006, when it was bound to set off for Jamaica. The incident brought serious repercussions and nearly 100 cabins were ruined in 4 decks. (Mayntz, Sandymae, and Sundblad, 2010). The fire caused the death of one of the passengers by heart attack. Many others received serious lacerations and respiratory disorders. When investigated, it was revealed that the fire was produced by a cigarette that was left unattended in the cabin of one of the passengers. A couple of months ago, a house in Northfield caught fire as the smoker threw the cigarette bud out of the window. The bud landed over wood mulch and immediately the house was set on fire causing damage worth $ 5000 to $10,000. (Henke, 2010). It would never had caught fire had the smoker put the cigarette off before throwing it out of the window over the wood mulch spread in the house’s foundations. To investigate the tendency of a burning cigarette to cause fire, one burning cigarette was left unattended on a sofa in an experiment and the time of initial contact was recorded with the help of a clock placed in front of the sofa as indicated in the figure below:  (http://www.sierragal.com, n.d.). The figure on the left indicates the time of commencement of experiment when the burning cigarette was placed on the sofa. The time as indicated by the clock in front of the sofa is approximately 12 o’ clock. The room did not catch any fire even after 3 hours and 15 minutes had passed since the start of experiment, though the top of the sofa got smoldered away. The top was burnt and fumes were produced, but no fire popped out within the noted time. 3 hours and 15 minutes is a considerably long period of time for a fire to break out and it still did not. That proves that a cigarette takes too long to set a piece of furniture on fire to be accused of the source of fire in any situation. This challenges the validity of the claim that cigarette was the cause of fire in the case of Star Princess. Fire investigations often come to an end once a cigarette is noticed in the locality of the accident, which is not right. Conclusion: Many cigarette banning campaigns have been initiated in the past with a view to ban or at least alter the composition of cigarettes so as to reduce their ability to cause the ignition. However, any thought of altering the chemical composition of the constituents of a cigarette to make it less prone to cause fire is vain because it involves measures to reduce its sustainability to remain lit which is something, not welcomed by the customers of cigarette brands. Making a cigarette fire safe alters its taste and fire in the burning tip of such a cigarette is likely to put off before a smoker finishes smoking the cigarette. (Potratz, 2009). The cigarette industry has conventionally maintained a huge share in the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many advanced countries. US spends as much as $ 30 billion just on cigarettes every year which makes up to 1% of the total consumer disposable income only because the business is useful for the economic strength of the country. (Levin, 1987). Similar trends prevail in many other countries where cigarettes are not prohibited. It is noteworthy here that the annual monetary loss that accounts for all damage to property and other expenses raised by the incident of fire breakout because of a cigarette sums up to no more than $ 4.6 billion as per the estimation of Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). (Markey, 2002). Comparison of the two figures speaks much about the profitability of the tobacco manufacturing business. Instead of thinking about banning the cigarettes altogether or at least, emphasizing upon degrading the quality of cigarettes so as to reduce their vulnerability to cause fire, smokers should be requested to ensure that the conditions in which they smoke are free of all such factors that might in any way assist a burning cigarette bud to cause fire. A cigarette bud would never cause fire until it is thrown over a pile of papers or rubbish heap while burning. Measures should be taken to educate upon the dangers of throwing burning cigarettes anywhere. Smokers should put off a cigarette before discarding it. Also, smokers should remain careful not to smoke while their vehicle is refueled. (Popular Science, 99). Besides, care should be taken to reduce the furniture’s susceptibility to catch fire. “In the USA, there are mandatory flammability standards for mattresses that address both open flame and cigarette ignition.” (Hull and Kandola, 270). To conclude all what is said above, cigarettes are not potentially a strong source of fire because their tendency to cause fire is hindered by the length of time, a burning cigarette takes to ignite a piece of furniture. Fire investigators need to adopt an unbiased approach towards investigating the cause of fire and should carry out the investigation without a pre-defined hypothesis in their mind that the fire was caused by a cigarette. Works cited: “Appendix F – Cigarette Fire Scenarios.” n.d. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . DeBellotte, Yvonne. (2010). “Smoking Related Fires: Unattended Smoking Materials Attribute to Natural Disasters, Civilian Deaths, and Injury Each Year.” 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . “Firefighters test ‘fire safe’ cigarettes.” 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . Henke, David. “Cigarette suspected cause of house fire (updated).” Northfield News. 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . Hull, T. Richard, and Kandola, Baljinder K. Fire retardancy of polymers: new strategies and mechanisms. Royal Society of Chemistry. 2009. Jackson, Albert, and Day, David. Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-To. NY: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2001. Levin, Myron. “Making A Fire-Safe Cigarette.” Los Angeles Times. 1987. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . Markey, Edward J. “The Joseph Moakley Fire Safe Memorial Cigarette Act of 2002.” 2002. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. Mayntz, Sandymae, and Sundblad Donna. “Cruise Ship Accidents.” 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . “ADVANCED DRIVING SKILLS: How to Cope with Trouble When You’re Already In It.” Popular Science. Vol. 201. No. 1. July 1972. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. Potratz, Terri. “Fire Safe Cigarettes Mandated in 5 More US States.” 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. . “Campaing Guide: A Fire Safety Campaign for People 50-plus.” US Fire Administration. Aug. 2004. Web. 5 Nov. 2010. Read More