Flammable Mattresses

Recently, Dateline NBC conducted a flammability test on a standard mattress, just like the one you would have in your home. They lit it as if someone had dropped a match into a wastebasket. It only took 20 seconds for the mattress to ignite once the flames from the wastebasket reached it.

After one minute and 40 seconds, the mattress was in full flame, emitting poisonous gases like carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. These gases have the ability to render you unconscious, making escape impossible. After two minutes and 40 seconds, there was nothing left, with the exception of the coils and a burning ring of petroleum distillates beneath the bed.

Why did this mattress reduce to nothing but metal rings in less than three minutes? Practically every mattress available today is constructed of polyurethane foam. Polyurethane foam is essentially petrochemicals, a derivative of petroleum, which yields kerosene and gasoline. Petrochemicals are fast and furious burners, leaving very little as a reminder of the previously existing object.

Why aren't safer mattresses being produced? You may be surprised to find that they are- but you cannot purchase one. There are mattresses treated with a fire retardant, but they are placed in prisons, nursing homes, hospitals and dormitories where accidental or deliberate fires could pose a greater threat than the average home.

The government has yet to tighten the standards for home mattresses. "The mattress goes up so fast that most of our victims have only been burned for 45 seconds, at 1,800 degrees," said Whitney Davis, the founder of the Children's Coalition for Fire-Safe Mattresses. "Twenty-eight thousand mattress fires a year on the average take place, with 3,000 injuries…600 of them die."

The hold-up seems to be a cost issue. Making a mattress that is both fire retardant and comfortable would appear to be, at this time, virtually impossible. According to Gordon Damant, a flammability specialist who heads a testing and consulting firm in California, if consumers want the same flame retardancy found in prison mattresses, they will have to pay at least 50 percent more and forego the extras, like pillow top padding.

In the United Kingdom, a flammability standard is already in place, and you cannot buy a mattress that is not flame retardant. A UK mattress manufacturer told Dateline NBC that prices only increased by about 5 percent when the standard went into effect, plus they have been able to keep the cushioning top layer.