(Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Firefighters promoting cigarette safety after house fires last week

Aug 12, 2019 | 1:17 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services responded to two house fires in two days that were both caused by cigarettes being improperly disposed of.

The first happened last Thursday at an apartment building on the 300 block of Highlands blvd, while the second was on the 700 block of 12A Street North the following day.

Fire Prevention Officer Adam Saturley says they have been doing what they can to educate the public about the risks of cigarette disposal.

“It seems sometimes that the messaging is just not getting there, and I think a lot of it is routine that people may be used to disposing of cigarettes in a certain way. It’s just a matter of kind of re-training themselves or making sure that they’re aware of the fact that there are dangers in the way that they’re extinguishing them.”

In the case on Friday, he reports that it appears that someone passing by, on foot or in a car, tossed a cigarette into the homeowner’s property and landed underneath the front deck.

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Saturley is urging everyone to be more careful when it comes to disposing of used smokes.

Generally, the best and safest option is to put them into a non-combustible container.

“You have to very careful because there are places that do sell little containers that are actually sold as, like, a cigarette can, but some of them are made with plastics, so if it gets hot enough and you have anything in there, if you kind of forget and you put some paper in there to dispose of it, thinking, ‘I’ll get rid of that at the same time I empty this’, that can start a fire as well.”

He adds that some people put out their smokes in potted plants thinking that the dirt will stop it from spreading, but often times, the opposite can be true.

“You’ve got roots, you’ve got, sometimes, woodchips, things like that, and the fire can actually smolder for quite some time under there as long as there’s oxygen going to it. You have all the elements that could be there and the fire can start up. It can take several hours, even a couple of days, we’ve seen, that it can just sit there and smolder.”

For more fire safety tips, go to the Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services website.