New legislation was introduced Monday by state Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, that would require cigarettes in Wisconsin to be fire-safe,"" which could prevent fires that lead to hundreds of deaths every year in the United States.
The ""fire-safe"" cigarettes have a greater likelihood to self-extinguish when left unattended, using less-porous paper strips on parts of the wrapper to act as a ""speed bump"" to slow the burning process, according to the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes.
Jim Bender, communications director for Assembly Majority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said the legislation ""could enhance public safety.""
He stressed that effective legislation would have to be similar to legislation passed in other states.
""You don't want a patchwork of legislation that creates different cigarettes in all 50 states,"" Bender said.
Twenty-two other states already have legislation that requires selling ""fire-safe"" cigarettes, and nine other states have filed similar legislation. State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said that he had not yet looked at the bill.
According to the City of Madison Fire Department, four out of the five recorded fire deaths in the last two years have occurred in fires started by smoking materials. CMFD Public Information Officer Lori Wirth stated that 19 fires have already been caused this year in Madison by smoking materials.
""This legislation could possibly have an impact unlike anything we've seen since smoke detectors were required. It's a pretty big deal '¦ we have a real opportunity to preserve life,"" Wirth said.
Wirth said the bill would save the lives of both smokers and their neighbors because deaths caused by smoking related materials are often not those of the smokers themselves.
According to the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes, 34 percent of the victims are children of the smokers, 25 percent are neighbors or friends and 14 percent are spouses.
In July, a fire in a Madison apartment building created an estimated $3.5 million dollars in damage, as reported by the CMFD. Firefighters said they believed that discarded smoking materials in a planter on a roof deck caused the fire, which did not injure any of the building's inhabitants.
