Is Your Sofa A Fire Hazard?

You snuggle up on them. You lie down on them. You fall asleep on them. You shouldn’t have to worry about dying on them. But one giant not-for-profit safety organization is worried about a potential danger with your sofa or the furniture in your home, and they’ve destroyed a few couches to show you why.

A new study by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) shows the synthetic materials used in modern furniture burns hotter and faster and produces more toxic smoke than natural wood or cotton. That means you have less time to escape a fire than ever before.
 
“When the fire starts, it takes only about three to four minutes before that room is in flashover,” explains spokesman John Drengenberg. “Flashover is when everything starts burning all at once. You couldn’t survive a flashover, and what we’ve learned in our research project is that flashover takes place about in 3 to 4 minutes today, whereas 20 to 30 years ago, it was 15 to 17 minutes.”

“What that means is you have less time to get out today than before because of the predominance of synthetic materials.”

To make mattes worse, Drengenberg believes most are ignorant to the threat.

“I suspect not 1 in 100 people would know that synthetic materials burn hotter and faster than natural materials,” he adds.

UL advises there are three critical steps you can take to protect your family. Install smoke detectors in every floor of your home ( it’s the already the law in Ontario), have an escape plan with at least two different exits and a meeting point to ensure everyone got out O.K., and get out quickly and call 911 from outside the fire area. Another good tip – quit smoking. Many sofa fires start from people falling asleep with a lit cigarette.

Read the full study (.pdf file)

Study Q&A

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More Fire Safety Tips

Some of these are common sense. Others you may not have thought much about. The important thing is that you put them into practice now. Once the fire starts, it’s already too late.

-Keep matches and lighters in a secured drawer or cabinet, out of reach of children. Check under beds and in closets for burnt matches, evidence your child may be playing with fire.

-Keep lit candles away from bedding, curtains, sleepwear and anything else that can ignite easily; don’t leave lit candles unattended; extinguish all candles when leaving a room or before going to sleep.

-Keep bedding, clothes, curtains and other flammable items at least 1 metre away from portable heaters.

-Don’t store old mattresses in your home or garage – they’re a fire hazard.

-Don’t block exit points, like side doors, with storage materials.

-Make sure everyone in your family knows at least two escape routes from their bedrooms, and practice them often.

-Teach children to “stop, drop and roll” if their clothing catches fire.

-Design and practice a home escape plan for you and your family in the event of fire.

-Ensure that every room has two ways out.

-Designate a meeting spot outdoors where a head count can be completed.

-Hold on tightly to your children during your escape. Some kids become be so frightened during a fire emegency, they’ll try to run back into a burning home

-Don’t go back inside a burning residence for any reason

Sources: Health Canada and Toronto Fire Services