Government requires mattresses to be slow to burn

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — New safety standards would make burning mattresses less likely to cause house fires that kill hundreds of people each year, most of them children.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday it will create the new rule to ensure that mattresses burn less intensely when exposed to small, open flames or bedding that’s already on fire. All three commission members voted to develop the regulations.

The new standard won’t prevent mattresses from catching fire, but would require that they burn more slowly, giving people more time to escape, said Ann Brown, chairwoman of the safety commission.

"Young children will often start these fires," she said. "They will see they’ve done something they know is bad. They will hide and very often perish."

In 1998, the last year for which figures were available, more than 18,000 residential fires began with burning mattresses, sheets or pillows, the agency said. Those fires caused $200 million in property damage, 390 deaths and 2,160 injuries that required emergency room treatment.

From 1994 to 1998, children younger than 15 accounted for more than three-quarters of the deaths related to mattress and bedding fires ignited by small flames like those from candles, matches or lighters, the commission said.

The Sleep Product Safety Council, a mattress industry group, supports the new standard and has worked with the government to develop tests for burning mattresses, said Pat Martin, the group’s executive director.

Martin said it was too soon to know the long-term costs to consumers and the industry, but manufacturers will be able to use different methods to make mattresses safer.

Mattress fires usually begin when bedding ignites and the fire spreads. Mattresses can then burn fast and very hot, leading to a "flashover," a burst of intense fire caused when flammable gases in the room ignite spontaneously or receive a rush of oxygen.

"That is the kind of catastrophic fire that is killing these kids," said agency spokesman Ken Giles. He said that since children tend to hide in closets and corners during fires, the flashover gives them little time to escape or be rescued.

The new safety rule and testing will seek to prevent burning mattresses from causing flashover, he said.

An existing federal standard requires that mattresses not catch fire when exposed to heat from cigarettes, which don’t burn as hot as open flames.