It’s time to snuff out smoking-related fires
No matter how many times firefighters issue warnings about the danger of butting out smoking materials in flower pots, smokers continue stubbing cigarettes into plastic planters filled with flammable peat moss.
Just as inevitably, disaster ensues.
It happened recently in Edmonton when someone left a smouldering butt in a potted plant on the deck of a fourthfloor suite of a 90-unit apartment building. The resulting fire caused $14 million in damage and rendered the complex uninhabitable. All the people who lived there are now temporarily homeless.
It’s far from the first calamity caused by a carelessly discarded butt. To date in 2018, smoking materials have sparked 54 Edmonton fires and $19.3 million in property damage. Last year, $3.5 million worth of property was lost in 63 fires related to unextinguished smokers’ material. In 2016, 88 such blazes destroyed $5.4 million in property.
Despite renewed warnings and news coverage from the latest fire, it’s only a matter of time until a thoughtless smoker sets another building ablaze, destroying property and endangering lives. People just aren’t getting the message about the incendiary mix of cigarettes and inappropriate ashtrays, with catastrophic consequences.
Society has rightly tried to mitigate the impact of smoking on people’s health over the past few decades. Now, it’s time to take action on the longstanding threat to public safety posed when smoking materials are disposed of in reckless fashion.
An easy way to start is to heed the call by deputy fire Chief Russell Croome urging landlords and condominium boards to take steps such as providing proper disposal receptacles and on-site education about safe smoking practices — or ban smoking on the property altogether. Since some boards and owners are already mulling what to do about cannabis consumption in their buildings, it’s timely to review tobacco policies in those same discussions.
Some residents may argue about the right to smoke in their own homes, but when living in a shared building or even in a detached house with nearby neighbours, that privilege is overshadowed by the responsibility to keep others safe.
Officials said charges in Sunday’s fire won’t be laid, adding that prosecution in such cases is difficult.
If that’s the case, it’s frustrating that negligent behaviour that destroys property and endangers lives goes unpunished by the justice system.
Why are forests better protected from carelessly set fires than the places people call home?