The UK RIP Coalition, which includes the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA), the British Burn Association and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, claimed cigarette companies appeared unwilling to offer the same protection in the EU as that already on offer across North America.

Now the Coalition has teamed up with its European counterparts, the EU RIP Alliance, to demand the same standard of protection for all EU member countries.

The RIP Coalition said this week that the European Commission was now considering taking steps under the General Product Safety Directive to ensure that cigarettes, which go out if left unattended, would be sold across the entire EU.

UK fire statistics show that smoking is the biggest cause of fire deaths in the home, with 82 deaths and over 1,000 injuries occurring as a result of fires caused by cigarettes in 2005. This was the equivalent to one third of all accidental fatal fires in homes.

"More effective"

The Coalition has claimed that many of these deaths and injuries could be avoided by "tiny adjustments" to cigarettes that make them go out if they are left unattended.

"These cigarettes are already produced and sold as standard in Canada, across much of the United States and will soon be introduced in Australia," said a spokesperson for the Coalition.

"However, the same cigarette companies that already produce these cigarettes appear reluctant to offer people in UK and the rest of EU the same protection."

Arlene McCarthy, MEP chairwoman of the European Parliament Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, was behind the campaign.

She said: "There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. Certainly, cigarette free homes would make for more effective fire prevention. However, we emphasise that reduced ignition propensity (RIP) cigarettes are safer than cigarettes currently sold in Europe and represent an effective, low cost, almost self-regulating approach to reduce fires and fire deaths in Europe."

Simple change?

The EU RIP Alliance is proposing the introduction of a simple standard requiring that cigarettes sold in Europe be designed to go out if left unattended.

"How they achieve this standard is up to the cigarette companies, but so far simply adding two tiny bands of thicker paper has been enough to meet the standard elsewhere," said the RIP Coalition spokesperson. "These tiny speed bumps' add less than half of 1% on to the price of a pack, and evidence from the US shows that smokers cannot taste the difference.

"But even if the Commission were to act tomorrow cigarette companies would claim 3 to 5 years to introduce the production standards, although they are already manufacturing the same cigarettes elsewhere."

Speaking on behalf of the EU RIP Alliance, Val Shawcross, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority said: "All that stands between life and pointless death is two wafer thin bands of paper. That is why this Alliance will not rest until the law requires tobacco manufacturers to provide the people of Europe with the same protection from cigarette fires they now get in other parts of the world."

The Tobacco Manufacturers Association (TMA) has claimed that cigarette design in the EU is constrained by a legal requirement for set tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide ceilings - which "affect product design" and which "do not apply in the USA or Canada".