Fire official: Spike in number of blazes ignited by discarded cigarettes

For cigarette smokers, discarding a spent butt can be little more than an afterthought.

But that casual flick has had expensive consequences in Wichita this year, fire officials say.

With 2016 just three months old, there have already been 27 fires started by cigarettes, officials say. There were 68 such fires in all of 2015. At the current rate, this year’s cigarette fires would jump more than 65 percent over 2015.

Several of this year’s fires ignited by cigarettes have been substantial, including a blaze that caused an estimated $600,000 in damage to a house in west Wichita early in March.

Investigators found the very spot at which a discarded cigarette ignited a grass fire next to Calvary Towers at 26th and Grove on March 3. The resulting fire caused $80,000 in damage to six houses in north Wichita.

A cigarette tossed in the front yard ignited a fire that caused $40,000 in damage to a house at 543 N. Poplar on March 21.

“People are creatures of habit, and they continue to do the same things they did previous to no moisture and dry conditions and high winds,” Fire Marshal Brad Crisp said.

Smokers have tossed countless cigarettes out the window without consequences in the past, he said.

“They keep doing it, and the weather conditions are different right now,” Crisp said.

Investigators are still trying to determine what started the massive grass fire that burned nearly 400,000 acres in Oklahoma and Kansas over several days in March. The blaze started in Oklahoma and spread north into Kansas, whipped by winds that gusted to nearly 60 miles an hour at times.

The fires were about 90 percent controlled in Barber and Comanche counties as of early this week. Hot spots are still being monitored by fire crews.

The fire started next to Highway 64 at about 5:20 p.m. March 22, Woods County Emergency Management Director Steve Foster said. A spokeswoman with Oklahoma Forestry Services said the cause of the fire is still unknown.

But given the timing and location of the origin, Foster said, “it wouldn’t be impossible” for the culprit to be a discarded cigarette.

“They’ll probably never find” the cause, Foster said.

Crisp said fires caused by cigarettes are particularly frustrating.

“That is so preventable,” Crisp said. “Put it out in the ashtray or in the pop can in the console.”

Vegetation made lush by a wet spring and summer last year has dried out over the winter. Low humidity and dry winds have turned the grass into tinder, fire officials say.

“The winds have just been crazy” over the past month, Crisp said.

Kansas averages up to 300 days a year on which winds reach 15 miles an hour or more, so a healthy breeze is part of the state’s fabric.

But the last month or so “hasn’t been normal,” Crisp said.

A burn ban is now in place in Wichita through the end of April. Wichita typically institutes a burn ban through April to reduce ozone emissions in an effort to remain within EPA limits as spring burning of the Flint Hills grasslands occurs.

Light rain has become more common as March turns into April, Crisp said, but the moisture hasn’t been enough to eliminate the risk of grass fires. That means smokers will need to take extra care when disposing of cigarettes.

“We’re impatient,” Crisp said. “We get distracted.”

When a smoker tosses a cigarette out a window or discards it into a potted plant, “you’re playing roulette,” he said.

“A smoker gets away with discarding thousands of cigarettes before they have that ‘oops’ – but it only takes one,” Crisp said.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Fire official: Spike in number of blazes ignited by discarded cigarettes."