Smoking-material fires killed 780 people and injured 1,600 others in 2006. Eighty-nine percent of the deaths and 82 percent of the injuries were in home fires.

Property losses from smoking-material fires total hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

Fires caused by smoking materials are actually on the decline, thanks in part to more stringent standards for fire-resistive mattresses and upholstered furniture, public education, and a dramatic decrease in the number of cigarettes consumed per adult in the United States.

The risk of dying in a home structure fire caused by smoking materials rises with age. Between 2003 and 2006, one-third (36 percent) of fatal smoking-material-fire victims were age 65 or older.

One-quarter of victims of smoking-material fire fatalities are not the smokers whose cigarettes started the fire: 34 percent are children of the smokers; 25 percent are neighbors or friends; 14 percent are spouses or partners; and 13 percent are parents.

NFPA research in the mid-1980s predicted that fire-safe cigarettes would eliminate three out of four cigarette fire deaths. If cigarette manufacturers had begun producing only fire-safe cigarettes then, an estimated 18,000 lives could have been saved by now.

Mattresses and bedding, upholstered furniture, and trash are the items most commonly ignited in smoking-material home fires.

Between 2003 and 2006, 40% of fatal home smoking-material fire victims were sleeping when injured; thirty-four percent were attempting to escape, to fight the fire, or to rescue others.