According to the NFPA, more than 700 people die in bedroom fires every year in the U.S. and thousands are injured

Home fires are common enough in the U.S. -- they occur about every 93 seconds. Consequently, America also has the highest fire fatality rate in the industrialized world, according to The U.S. Fire Administration. In an effort to help improve family safety, California has become the first state to pass a law that will substantially improve the ability of residential mattresses to resist fires from open-flame hazards such as candles, lighters and matches. Similar bills are now being considered in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

A F SERTA MATTRESS WITH FIREBLOCKER SERTA MATTRESS WITH FIREBLOCKER A conventional mattress (top) and a Serta mattress with FireBlocker (bottom), three minutes, 30 seconds after ignition.

While some industry players are debating enforcement issues surrounding the California requirements, one company, Serta, is marking National Home Safety Month (June) by announcing that they have incorporated new open-flame resistant technology called FireBlocker into their 2004 product line. Serta is currently the only nationally distributed brand to provide these safer products.

Key to understanding the emerging issue of bedroom fires, this sanctuary in the home now ranks second to kitchens as the most common location where residential fires occur. Children playing with matches, candles and lighters start more than 50 percent of these fires. The rise of bedrooms as a danger zone can be partially attributed to increased decorative candle use. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) states home fires caused by candles are at a 20-year high, while fire fatalities associated with candle use increased 750 percent over a 19-year period starting in 1980.

According to the NFPA, more than 700 people die in bedroom fires every year in the U.S. and thousands are injured. "Mattresses significantly contribute to the seriousness of this hazard," said the outgoing chief of the California Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation (BHFTI), Lynn Morris. "The objective of the new legislation is to help save lives by providing consumers with a safer mattress." Under California's new mattress law, TB603, manufacturers will have to provide mattresses that can withstand a 30-minute open-flame burn test designed to duplicate fire conditions created when bedding materials such as sheets and comforters ignite.

Even though California's compliance deadline isn't until January 2005, Serta has already shipped the new fire-resistant mattresses to retail outlets nationally. "Now that we have technology that allows us to meet the new open- flame standards, we feel we have a responsibility to provide our customers with a safer product no matter where they live," said Ed Lilly, president of Serta. FireBlocker is a unique fire-barrier system made from a combination of natural and synthetic fibers that help isolate the impact of a fire and block its spread.

Starting in 1973, mattresses were required to resist ignition from slow smoldering fire conditions caused by cigarettes, under a national standard authored by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. However, safety concerns began to grow in 1989 when the number of bedding fires attributed to open- flame sources exceeded cigarettes for the first time, according to data supplied by an array of fire service organizations.

"Firefighters understand how quickly a fire can spread and how quickly lives can be lost," said Deputy Fire Chief Robert Klinoff, fire safety expert and author of "An Introduction to Fire Protection," a college-level text book for those interested in a career in fire protection. "This technology reduces some of the heat of the fire, making homeowners and firefighters safer. Most importantly, it provides more time to escape."

Time To Get Out

The Bouchers of Worcester, Massachusetts became intimately aware of the speed at which fire can spread in a bedroom fire. "I had no idea how quickly a mattress could ignite," Dion Boucher said. "It was scary seeing flames come out like that. I wanted to save the house, but I didn't realize how fast it could go up."

Like her husband, Tammy Boucher was surprised at how quickly the fire spread.

"I was thinking we had all the time in the world," she said. "But the heat was so intense so quickly that I could feel it at the other end of the hallway. I even thought I might lose my husband because he was trying to fight the fire. I never thought about mattress safety before. But I do now."

Whitney Davis, an attorney in California who founded the Children's Coalition for Fire Safe Mattresses and a vocal advocate for the new legislation, believes most people don't realize how little time they have to escape safely. "I've seen it time and again. Lives can be needlessly lost because the fire gets out of control so quickly. This requirement is going to help provide additional time to escape and that's going to save lives," he said.

Building a Safer Mattress

Serta has worked on development of its FireBlocker technology for more than three years. Al Klancnik, Serta's group vice president for research and development efforts and a flammability expert, said the product had to meet two main criteria: "Our challenge was to create an answer that satisfies California's open-flame standard, while still offering an extremely comfortable night's sleep. The flame-resistant barrier system we created meets state and federal requirements, and a person sleeping on the mattress won't experience any changes in the feel or texture of it," he said.

Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the nation's leading not-for-profit safety testing lab, performed fire testing on Serta's technology using a procedure that imitates the heat of ignited bedding materials. UL has burned hundreds of mattresses as part of an ongoing analysis and quality assurance program. The California standard requires that an open-flame resistant mattress emit no more than 200 kilowatts of heat over a half-hour burn period. "Generally, our UL tests have shown that FireBlocker-equipped mattresses won't exceed 90 kilowatts during the burn," said Klancnik. By comparison, flashover temperatures occur when mattresses reach 900 to 1,000 kilowatts.

Precursor to a national standard?

Many in the mattress industry believe it's only a matter of time before a national regulation is established that will require safer mattresses for all consumers. "Once you've developed technology that offers the public a safer product, then it's only a matter of time before the standard requirements move from the state level to national," said Dave Perry, bedding editor of Furniture/Today, the leading industry trade magazine. "Serta is certainly ahead of the game in that regard due to their view that once you can build in a higher level of protection, then you have a responsibility to make it available everywhere."

From the fire services point of view, it's all about one thing: adding an extra margin of time, the most significant factor in safely escaping a fire. "Most people don't realize you've got only a couple of minutes to escape," added Klinoff. "While smoke alarms are essential to providing an early warning, mattresses with FireBlocker give you time to be alerted of the problem and react," he said.