DISCOVERING that a discarded cigarette was to blame for starting the house fire at Chorley, on September 21, makes the deaths of the three victims all the more tragic. The tobacco industry has known for 30 years how to make fire-safe cigarettes - cigarettes that are 90 per cent less likely to start a fire if dropped.

It is suspected that the reason these have not been introduced is because the manufacturers are afraid smokers may imagine that the taste of their favourite cigarettes will be fundamentally changed and switch brands.

It is also possible that the tobacco barons fear that, once people are aware that 'fire-safe' cigarettes have been feasible for about 30 years, there could be a very damaging flood of law suits against the industry. So cigarettes will continue to be the greatest source of fatal fires in Britain, claiming around 200 lives a year. And the 2,000 non-fatal injuries and the often devastating consequences of the 9,000 fires caused by cigarette fires will also continue.

The Association for Nonsmokers' Rights repeats its pleas to the Government to extend legislation that already exists requiring manufacturers to make their products safe, to include regulations to force tobacco manufacturers to produce fire-safe cigarettes.

PHILLIP WHIDDEN, Publications Editor, Association for Nonsmokers' Rights, Melgund Centre, Melgund Terrace, Edinburgh.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.