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Is there a time bomb in the sofa? Upholstered furniture can turn a small fire into a life-threatening blaze in minutes. Although the problem of furniture flammability is well known to manufacturers, most consumers remain unaware of its magnitude.

Article Excerpt
The scenario is all too frequent and invariably tragic. Small children are naturally attracted to fire. An unsupervised child, playing with a lighter or matches, ignites the couch in the family den, then runs and hides. (1) In just two or three minutes, the room becomes untenable; fire then fills the room in a condition called flashover, (2) which no one can survive. Almost immediately, the fire spreads rapidly to other parts of the home, where occupants often are seriously injured or killed.

This is a worst-case scenario, but sadly, it is not unusual. Dwellings are especially vulnerable to fire hazards because of furniture that can ignite easily, regardless of how a fire starts. Statistical and fire incidence data indicates that the home is where people are most likely to experience a serious fire. (3)

In the presence of an ignition source, a fire is more likely to start or spread in a home that has furniture cushioned with polyurethane foam. And yet this material is used in nearly all upholstered furniture sold in the United States. It is a petroleum-based product that has some of the same combustion characteristics as gasoline and kerosene. Unmodified, it ignites readily and burns vigorously when exposed to a small ignition source, giving off huge volumes of dense black smoke that contains toxic gases. It also consumes available oxygen as it burns, which further threatens people in the home.

Foam manufacturers have long issued explicit written warnings of these properties to furniture makers, (4) but the makers do not convey these warnings meaningfully to consumers, probably because such warnings would cause furniture sales to decline.

Other furniture components contribute to the problem as well. Some fabrics perform better than others in the presence of small, open-flame ignition sources such as matches and lighters. Some ignite easily and spread flame rapidly or accelerate smoldering in the presence of burning cigarettes. Polyester fiber used in seat backs may initially melt away from flame but then burn rapidly and create a liquid "pool fire," which then flows into and ignites surrounding materials.

Why is upholstered furniture so dangerous? If a sofa in an average-sized family den (8 feet by 12 feet, for example) ignites, the fire in that room will reach a heat-release level of several million watts of energy in less than four minutes. The room typically reaches the point of flashover when the fire approaches 800,000 to 1 million watts of energy. So in this example, where does the rest of the energy--2 million to 3 million watts--go? It goes elsewhere in the home and creates untenable conditions far from the room the sofa is in.

The heat and smoke produced are lethal, and the speed with which they spread makes the situation even more deadly. Extensive literature confirms this effect of burning furniture. (5) Furniture need not perform so poorly, but most cushioned furniture available for purchase today will perform this way in a fire.

Furniture can be made reasonably safe with feasible, commercially available materials and designs at reasonable cost. Some furniture-covering materials such as wool, leather, modacrylics, and PVC vinyl typically perform adequately without retardants. Fire barrier materials, designed to go between the fabric and highly flammable foam to delay ignition, have been produced for decades and can be incorporated into furniture for a modest increase in cost. (6)

Methods to treat filling materials such as polyurethane foam, polyester fiber, and cotton with fire retardants have long been available. (7) Certain...

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