Home Furnishings, Furniture and Fire safety
Careless use of smoking products is the leading cause of deaths
associated in home fires. Most of these fires involve smoking material
ignition of upholstered furniture or mattresses and bedding. Choose
your home furnishings in order to significantly reduce the risk of a
fire that can be caused by cigarette, cigars, pipes, matches, lighters,
candles and other sources of heat and flame in your home. If you use
those products, be extremely careful to keep ignition sources away from
ignitable materials and make sure they are properly extinguished,
disposed of, and cooled before discarding them.
Upholstered Furniture
When purchasing furniture, you should look for items that are designed
to reduce the likelihood of ignition by smoking materials.
Fabrics made from predominantly thermoplastic fibers, such as nylon,
polyester and olefin, exhibit good resistance to ignition from
smoldering cigarettes. Some leathers, wool and vinyl fabrics also
exhibit good cigarette ignition resistance. Generally, the higher the
synthetic fiber content of the fabric the more it resists ignition from
smoldering sources such as cigarettes. Fabrics such as cotton, rayon,
linen and acetate have lower cigarette ignition resistance.
Upholstered furniture is also susceptible to ignition by small open
flames, such as from lighters, matches and candles. There is no
guarantee that a furniture product resistant to cigarette ignition will
resist small flame ignition, so be extremely careful with the use of
small flames near upholstered furniture.
Mattresses and Bedding
You should consider replacing your old mattress with a new one if the
mattress is not fire resistant.
It is not a good idea to store unused mattresses, since these products
can add to the household's fire load. Keep all ignition sources away
from these products to reduce the risk of these types of fires.
Other Furnishings
When purchasing furniture, you should look for items that are designed
to reduce the likelihood of ignition by smoking materials.