American furniture products should be in the spotlight again following the South Carolina fire that killed nine of Charleston’s best.
In 1993 American fire marshals were already campaigning to improve furniture fire safety. However, by 2000, little progress had been made and a law firm in South Carolina called Foster and Foster wrote an advisory called “Flammable Upholstered Furniture: Is there a deadly time bomb in your couch?”
Robert P. Foster has brought legal action against a maker of upholstered furniture causing injury and death under product liability theories of strict liability, negligence, and warranty. “Its excessive flammability makes it an unreasonably dangerous product well beyond the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer.”
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The primary flammability culprit is polyurethane foam, the seating cushioning core that shares some of the same combustion properties as kerosene and gasoline. It is a petroleum based product sometimes called solid gasoline
Fast forward to this morning when people are discussing similar conditions under which a “fire tornado” whipped through a Carolina warehouse stuffed to the brim with furniture for a giant sale.
Bloomburg’s report shows that while presence of a sprinkler system could be significant factor, the quantity of “solid gasoline” is also important:
The one-story building had no sprinklers, said Mike Parrotta, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters-South Carolina.
“It appeared they were having a closeout sale, so it’s likely they were overstocked and the fire load was greater than normal,” Parrotta said.
Firefighters are professionals, not just ordinary consumers, but would they have acted differently if they had been looking at a warehouse of gasoline in front of them rather than furniture?
Furniture does not have to be made with solid gasoline, obviously. When I used to work on furniture repair I always saw cotton and burlap padding as easier to work with and more comfortable. I found nothing more unpleasant than working on toxic foam-based products. The furniture industry is driven by a very different set of values, however, as flammability and toxicity of furniture is not regulated in America and remains a significant source of risk:
For three decades, most upholstered furniture and mattresses sold in America have contained flexible polyurethane foam, the plastic material that was used as soundproofing around The Station nightclub stage. It’s found in couches, love seats, chairs, recliners, mattresses, mattress pads and mattress toppers, pillows, carpet cushioning and many other places.
More than 2 billion pounds of foam enters the U.S. market every year.
Foam is comfortable and comparatively cheap — and once ignited, it can be lethal. Mattress, bedding and upholstered furniture fires killed almost 30,000 Americans from 1980 to 1998, the latest year for which National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) data are available. Another 95,655 people were injured.
From 1980 to 1998, mattress and bedding fires killed 12,712 Americans, according to the NFPA — 10 times more than all those killed by tornadoes and hurricanes combined.
Almost 4,000 people killed a year, and that’s old news. By 2002 the number was up to almost 5,000 people killed a year, according to a FAQ by firemarshals.org:
If furniture manufacturers made some small, inexpensive changes to the materials they use, they could save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of serious injuries every year.
They also point out that empirical evidence of success is easy to find:
California is the only state with fire safety regulations for upholstered furniture sold for use in homes. According to the California Bureau of Home Furnishings there was a 25% drop in deaths involving upholstered furniture after these standards were put into place in the 1970s.
The UK also has regulations for furniture. In addition “upholstery in airplanes, hotels, nursing homes, hospitals and even prisons is required to be fire resistant.” But consumer products outside California are left unregulated. The firemarshals.org FAQ does a nice job putting it in perspective:
It’s a funny thing about competition. The auto industry said airbags were unaffordable. The mattress industry said that fire safety standards would add hundreds of dollars to the price of each mattress. Consumers are still buying lots of cars and mattresses.
Perhaps the unfortunate death of the firefighters will bring the federal government to its senses. Nine brave men lost their lives trying to save others. There is no country to invade, no foreigners to blame, but here is a clear case where America’s national security (one less vulnerability in every home) could be improved by a simple stroke of the pen.