Ignition Sources

GNITION SOURCES: Products and other things in your home that get hot enough to start fires.

How we see the challenge.

We call them ignition sources. You call them cigarettes, matches, lighters, candles, space heaters, the gas flame on your stovetop and anything having to do with electricity. Used as intended, no problem. But, tens of thousands of times each year, misuse or malfunction causes big problems. Ignition sources differ in the amount of energy they generate and the ways in which that energy becomes fuel. For example, a lit cigarette transfers high levels of heat very slowly to the fabric on a couch. Some fabrics won't ignite because of the cigarette, others do fairly easily. A paper match held to the same couch will not generate as much heat but acts more rapidly. Again, some fabrics will ignite, others may resist ignition.

What are we doing about ignition sources?

We rely on two strategies. The first is a matter of public education: reminding parents to keep matches, lighters and other potentially hot things away from their children, and then teaching kids how to use those hot things safely. With the help of the US Justice Department, NASFM has commissioned experts to study the home environment for clues on how best to keep young hands away from ignition sources. The results of that work will be featured on our website in early 2000.

Our second strategy deals with making products safer. For example:

• For nearly a decade, NASFM has been actively involved in the search for cigarettes with reduced ignition propensity - even a small improvement in cigarettes' tendency to ignite upholstered furniture would have a big impact on the number of lives lost from home fires involving cigarettes. NASFM was the first safety organization to publicly endorse Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Moakley's new legislation requiring fire safe cigarettes, the Joseph Moakley Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 2002, HR 4607 (Type in HR 4607 when asked for bill number). NASFM also is represented on the ASTM E5 Committee on Fire Standards, the technical committee charged with validating test methods for judging the ignition propensity of cigarettes.
• The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) requires all cigarette lighters to be child-resistant, and is now looking a requiring utility lighters to have the same important feature. NASFM believes product safety engineers can do even more to prevent children from using lighters. In 2000, NASFM will sponsor a competition to encourage engineering schools and industrial design firms to propose ways of making lighters even more child resistant.
• NASFM supports the Consumer Product Safety Commission's work in ensuring that candles are safer - that is, less likely to tip over or drip hot wax - and that they have proper warning labels for consumers.
• Toasters, mixers, coffee-makers, radios and TVs, microwaves, power tools, air-conditioners, personal computers, Christmas tree lights, stereos, table lamps and fax machines - thousands of products rely on electricity to work. When electric switches and connections misfunction, electricity can ignite fires. NASFM addresses electrical fires in several ways:

State fire marshals help to design, adopt and enforce electrical safety codes governing the construction of homes and other structures, as well as the products found inside those buildings. For example, over the past year NASFM worked 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. NASFM also is working with fire safety officials in the European Commission on minimum standards for electrical equipment sold globally.

NASFM's Arson and Fire Investigation Committee will soon launch a study of electrical appliances involved in actual fires - in part, to better understand why these fires ignite, and also to provide guidance to fire investigators when these fires occur.