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Officials checking for fire-safe cigarettes 

Whether or not smokers like it, beginning Jan. 1, 2010 Oklahoma retailers will only be allowed to sell fire safe cigarettes.

"Some folks don't like the fire safe cigarettes, primarily because they go out and they (smokers) get tired of sitting there and relighting them," said Oklahoma State Fire Marshal Tommie Rhoades.

But this inconvenience must be weighed against the National Fire Protection Association statistics that show that "30,000 fires every year across the United States are attributed to cigarettes and smoking related material," Rhoades said, adding that "from those 30,000 fires, we have 700 to 900 fatalities."

"We also have firefighters lose their lives fighting those fires," the fire marshal said.

It is in consideration of these lives that the state legislature passed the Fire Safety Standard and Firefighter Protection Act, which went into effect earlier this year, Rhoades said.

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