Fuels in the Home

FUELS: Things that burn.

How we see the challenge.

Everything burns at some temperature, even steel and concrete. But NASFM focuses on stuff that ignites easily and things that burn exceptionally fast and hot. We are most concerned about the materials - the roofing, walls, supports, insulation and flooring - used in buildings, and all the furnishings, decorations, equipment, cleaning supplies and other potentially combustible things in your house. We call it the fuel load in your home.

Let's compare three common substances: cotton, wood and gasoline. Cotton can ignite and burn rapidly but is consumed quickly - generally not causing much damage unless it ignites something else. Wood can ignite quickly and burn fairly hot, but wood fires tend to move slowly - giving people more time to escape safely. (A dried-out Christmas tree would be an explosive exception.) Gasoline doesn't ignite quickly - it must go from liquid to vapor first. But when it does ignite, the spreads rapidly and burns very hot.

A surprising number of fires come from improperly stored gasoline near a hot water heater in a garage. But gasoline - in the form of plastic - is found in every room of every house, and it can be just as deadly. Some plastics are resistant to fire. But highly flammable plastics may be in the computer and chair you are using right now.

What are we doing about the fuel load in your home?

• NASFM's highest fire safety priority is the adoption of a nationwide flammability standard for upholstered furniture. At least two people die every day in fires involving upholstered furniture. Some of these fires involve careless smoking. Some involve juvenile fire-setting or the careless use of candles. Fire statistics tend to feature "items first ignited." When upholstered furniture is the second, third or fifth item ignited, it makes small fires very large very fast. Therefore, upholstered furniture is involved in almost all residential fire deaths.

  Virtually thousands of fabrics are used to cover upholstered furniture. Many are naturally fire resistant, such as wool. Others may melt rather than ignite. Others ignite and, in turn, ignite underlying layers of textiles and then filling materials. From start to finish, ignition may take a few minutes or hours. But once filling materials - especially polyurethane foam - is ignited, enormous quantities of toxic gas and heart are generated very rapidly. More than two decades ago, the State of California set fire safety standards for upholstered furniture. In 1993, NASFM petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission to adopt the California standards nationwide. Furniture industry lobbyists have blocked action. NASFM estimates that as many as 500 lives would be saved every year, and 4,000 fires prevented annually, if furniture industry lobbyists had not succeeded in blocking Commission action. In the meantime, some major furniture retailers have adopted the California standard on a voluntary basis.

• Mattresses pose some of the same hazards as upholstered furniture. But unlike upholstered furniture producers, the mattress industry has a long history of championing fire safety. Thanks to industry leadership, a mattress cigarette ignition standard has been federal law for a quarter century, and mattress manufacturers are now supporting the development of a second standard addressing open flame ignitions of their products.
• NASFM monitors the choice of plastics used throughout the home. Under ignition sources, we discussed our work with Underwriters Laboratories, the plastics, chemical, home appliance and information technologies industries, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to strengthen a standard (UL746) governing more than 11,000 electrical devices. This standard recently updated, requires that many of the plastics used in appliances meet fire safety standards. NASFM also is working with the information technology industry to review the use of plastics found in home computers.
• To meet fire safety standards, plastics may be made with fire retardant chemicals -- some of which are suspected of posing environmental hazards. NASFM - with technical support from the US Environmental Protection Agency - is working with fire protection and environmental protection officials in Sweden to see that the benefits and risks of these fire retardant chemicals are properly weighed. NASFM approached Sweden because of that nation's extraordinary reputation for safety and environmental quality. Contact us for more information on this unusual partnership.
• Most building materials meet strict fire safety standards, but every so often, a new material poses new concerns.
• NASFM also is represented on a range of technical committees grappling with standards for building materials and the contents of homes.