Cigarette Safety

Adults, Take Responsibility for Your Cigarettes!

• Always use a proper ashtray and make sure it can’t be knocked over
• Never leave a lit cigarette lying around
• Take special care when you’re tired or when you you’ve been drinking
• Never smoke in bed
• Keep matches and lighters away from children

Latest annual figures show:

• Fires started by cigarettes kill more people than any other kind of fire - accounting for one third of all accidental fatal fires in the home.
• In 2005, 82 deaths and over 1,000 injuries occurred as a result of fires caused by smoking.
• You are six times more likely to die and almost twice as likely to be injured in a fire caused by a cigarette than you are with other fires.
• To put out a house fire, the standard call-out will include 2 fire engines, 10 fire fighters and 200 gallons of water.
• Households containing a smoker are almost 40 per cent more likely to suffer a fire than non-smoking households.
• Smokers are almost 25 per cent more likely not to own a working smoke alarm.
• A packet of 20 cigarettes costs £4.89 (National Statistics Retail Prices) whereas the average damage caused by a house fire costs £25,500 (The Economic Cost of Fire).

On average over the last 5 years:

• about 420 people are killed in house fires and 13,000 are injured each year.
• nearly 240 of the people killed in house fires each year didn't have a smoke alarm.
• over 80 people have been killed every year because their smoke alarms didn't work - usually because the battery was flat or missing.

Latest annual figures show:

Smoking could be more dangerous than you think. Every 3 days, someone dies because of a cigarette fire.

Boys beware - men are more likely to be killed or injured in cigarette fires