In 2011, U.S. fire departments responded (click here) to an estimated 90,000 smoking-material fires in the U.S., largely unchanged from 90,800 in 2010. These fires resulted in an estimated 540 civilian deaths, 1,640 civilian injuries and $621 million in direct property damage; deaths were down substantially from the year before.

Home structure fires dominated all these measures of loss except for fire incidents. In 2011, an estimated 17,600 smoking-material home structure fires caused 490 civilian deaths (19% of all home structure fire deaths), 1,370 civilian injuries and $516 million in direct property damage. The other 72,400 smoking-material fires in 2011 were mostly outdoor fires (60,200 fires in trash, vegetation and other outdoor combustibles)....

...Reduced ignition strength ("fire safe") cigarettes appear to be the principal reason for a 30% decline in smoking-material fire deaths from 2003-2011. Canada and all U.S. states have passed laws or other requirements that all cigarettes sold must have sharply reduced ignition strength (ability to start fires), as determined by ASTM Standard E2187-04. A simple projection linking the percentage decline in fires or fire deaths to the percentage of smokers covered suggested that when the law was fully effective across the entire country (in late 2011), the reduction in fire deaths should reach 30%, relative to levels in 2003, the last year before the fire-safe cigarette law was effective in any state....