The eight Baltimore City residents who died in the Cecil Avenue fire May 22 might have had a better chance to survive if the cigarette that started the fire was “fire-safe.”
Cigarettes sold in Baltimore burn longer and hotter than those in states enforcing fire-safe cigarettes, according to a Harvard study commissioned by the Baltimore City Health Department.
Investigators at the Harvard School of Public Health found that cigarettes sold in Baltimore are more likely to start fires than those manufactured to burn slowly and go out. Although Maryland legislators passed a fire-safe cigarette bill this year, it won?t take effect until July 2008.
“It is clear that cigarettes sold in Baltimore still pose an unnecessary fire risk,” said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, health commissioner. Sharfstein said fire-safe cigarettes could save lives and there?s no reason they shouldn?t already be on the shelves in city shops.
On May 22, a fire on Cecil Avenue killed eight Baltimore residents, including five children. Fire investigators determined that the cause of the fire was a cigarette. The Health Department requested the Harvard study in the wake of this determination.
Harvard also released a visual comparison showing how Baltimore cigarettes burn all the way down to the end, while cigarettes sold in New York and Vermont burn themselves out sooner, reducing the risk of fires.
“The longer it takes to fix this problem, the more we run the risk of needless fires and deaths in our city,” Fire Chief William J. Goodwin, Jr. said in a statement.
“Improperly discarded smoking materials does rate up there in our list of fire fatalities,” said fire spokesman Kevin Cartwright. “We do support the state legislation” on fire-safe cigarettes, he said.
The Maryland General Assembly passed a fire safety standard for cigarettes that takes effect July 1, 2008. However, full implementation is likely to take several months.
The law permits tobacco companies to sell cigarettes meeting fire safety standards sooner than July 1, 2008, according to the Health Department. The Harvard study demonstrates that the companies are not doing so at this time.
