Cigarette-caused fires kill an average 14 people a year in Australia and cost around $80m in damage.  See Chapman S and Balmain A, "Time to legislate for fire-safe cigarettes in Australia" in MJA 2004; 181(6):292-293 or  mja online   This report was backed by Australia country and metropolitan fire commissioners and their brigades   

There's evidence that many fires are started from lit cigarettes being thrown from car windows. See Chapman, Balmain in  mja online. The NSW Fire Service estimates around 4% of all cigarettes thrown from car windows start some kind of fire. Cigarettes can also cause fires inside cars - sometimes with fatal results.

The tobacco industry has lobbied against sensible regulation to introduce a standard for reduced fire risk cigarettes. 

Standards Australia have released their standard for the testing of Reduced Ignition Propensity (RIP) cigarettes – it’s now up to governments to write the standard into law, mandating that cigarettes sold in Australia meet this standard. Fierce opposition from some tobacco companies and their allies is expected.  See  the standard

Cigarette manufacturers put chemicals in cigarette paper to make them smoulder longer. Cigarettes can easily be made more self-extinguishing by removing or reducing these chemicals. Tobacco companies have known for years that this is scientifically feasible but have covered it up.   See Gunja M  et al, “The case for fire safe cigarettes made through industry documents” in Tobacco Control 2002;11: 346- 53        View  full paper

RIP legislation is law in the US states of New York, Illinois, New Hampshire, Massachussetts, Vermont, Calfornia and Canada with laws pending in a further 22 states. Compare the situation of RIP legislation in North America at  www.firesafecigarettes.org

But that hasn’t stopped British American Tobacco, one of the Big Two tobacco companies in Australia, telling the NSW Parliament's tobacco inquiry that such standards “don’t work in the real world.”   See BAT Australia submission to NSW Tobacco Inquiry  -  p.17 

Concerns have been raised that the standard might cause cigarettes to be worse for health than they are already – an untested and surprising objection, since it’s been on the public record since March 2004 that there is a 40-fold difference in nitrosamine (a known carcinogen) content in Australian brands – see Tobacco Control article - but nothing has been done to require the companies to change this. 

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Page last updated on 8/3/07