MATT CARROLL, Globe Staff

The Boston Globe

For smokers, indulging their habit gets tougher day by day. Laws now ban smoking in bars and restaurants and many other public places. Even at home, smokers find spouses and landlords much less willing to put up with smelly couches and drapes.

These legal and cultural changes have been evolving for decades. As a result, smokers increasingly find themselves smoking outside. And that may have led to a problem dramatically reflected in data collected by the state fire marshal's office.

According to the data, the number of exterior house fires caused by smokers has skyrocketed during the past few years. The number of indoor fires caused by smokers has also climbed, but at a much lower rate. In both types of fires, fire officials say carelessness is often to blame - whether it's a smoker falling asleep on a couch or bed with a lit cigarette, or one discarding a cigarette butt outside and unwittingly causing a blaze from smoldering mulch.

The number of exterior residential fires caused by smokers - such as to a porch or to the side of a dwelling - more than doubled statewide between 2003 and 2007, from 82 to 215 fires. Fires outside homes now amount to nearly half of all fires started by smokers, up from 20 percent.

``We're forcing smokers outside,'' said state Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan. One egregious example cited by Coan and others was a fire at a Peabody apartment complex last year that left more than 40 people homeless. The careless disposal of a cigarette in landscaping mulch was blamed.

Smoking has also caused a number of fatal fires, most of them indoors, in recent years. Among recent incidents, a Plymouth woman died in a house fire in February after falling asleep while smoking; in Marshfield in 2007, a woman was killed after accidentally setting herself on fire while trying to light a cigarette; in Wareham the same year, an 80-year-old woman died in a fire that may have been sparked by a cigarette; and in Brockton, a couch fire likely started by a lit cigarette killed a man and woman in 2006.

In this area, the number of fires started by smokers, both inside and outside, jumped about 20 percent between 2003 and 2007, from about 50 to more than 60. (Exterior and interior fires could not be categorized by region.)

Fires caused by smokers are still a small part of all the fires in the region - about 1 percent of the more than 5,300 fires reported in 2007. But these blazes can be deadly, according to fire chiefs. Fires caused by smokers are the leading cause of fire fatalities because the victims were often asleep after accidentally setting their bed or couch on fire, said Coan, a former smoker.

To be sure, the smoking habit has been under attack for decades. The state five years ago banned smoking in most restaurants, bars, and workplaces, which a report last year said had led to 600 fewer deaths from heart attack annually since then. Last year, Boston health officials banned cigarette sales in drugstores and on college campuses. The tax on cigarettes increased by $1 a year ago, to $2.51.

For outdoor fires, a common denominator is mulch, said several fire chiefs in this area.

``It's a rite of spring here,'' said Brockton Fire Chief Kenneth Galligan of mulch fires. The city sees a few of these every year, after landscapers lay down a fresh layer. Apparently, Galligan and others say, some smokers think of mulch as dirt, which won't burn, but mulch is actually wood chips.

Galligan cited two recent blazes caused by smokers outside restaurants in Brockton. In both, he said, smokers apparently flipped their burning cigarettes onto mulch, and the wood chips caught fire. The restaurant owners have since replaced the mulch with pea stone, he said.

Brockton had 41 residential fires caused by smokers between 2003 and 2007, more than any other community in this area.

In Plymouth, Fire Chief G. Edward Bradley said smokers were to blame for a number of recent fires, including several that occurred outside buildings. He said a year ago, a smoker dropped a burning butt in a flower pot on a porch. But organic material in the pot began to burn, and the house caught on next, causing extensive damage.

Smokers also ignited blazes inside buildings. In February, a woman died in her home after falling asleep while smoking, he said.

Lois Keithly, director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, said her agency gets a steady stream of calls from organizations including businesses and colleges worried about outside fires and wondering how to make their campuses smoke free.

Nearly 3,000 people called the agency when it recently ran a free nicotine patch program in Southeastern Massachusetts, she said. In a similar program several years ago, 20 percent of the people who tried the patch were still not smoking six months later - a strong success rate, she said.

Outside Brockton District Court on a recent afternoon, several smokers agreed the lower tolerance for smoking these days means they often take their smoke breaks outside.

``I always smoke outside,'' even at home, said Lori Silva, a probation officer at the court. The Fall River resident, who has smoked on and off for 20 years, said she doesn't let her boyfriend smoke indoors, either, because she hates the smell.

``It bothers my friends, too, when they have to smoke outside and it's freezing,'' she said. Smokers on her back porch use an ashtray. ``I don't allow anyone to ruin the lawn,'' she said.

Jim Mattina of Brockton said his landlord doesn't allow smoking inside. Maybe it's a moot point, though. The pack-a-day smoker said he planned to quit smoking, as soon as he finished the pack of Newports he was holding. ``I have a patch in my pocket,'' said the 31-year-old, showing off a nicotine patch.

Steve Helms said he has seen first-hand the problems caused by smokers, including setting on fire the mulch outside a club he attends. At home, the South Weymouth resident chooses to smoke inside.

``The landlord doesn't care,'' said the 51-year-old, who runs the concession stand at the courthouse.


Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company
All Rights Reserved
June 4, 2009