Cigarette fires -the overlooked upside of the decline in smoking

    The decline in smoking - down over half from just a few years ago - has saved countless lives in Montreal but not only in the way you might think.
   The Grim Reaper is being turned back as people are less likely to be killed by fires caused by lit cigarette.
   Up to one half of all Montrealers killed in fires throughout time were claimed by poorly-discarded cigarette.   

   A smoker dozing off with a lit cigarette, or someone discarding a still-fiery smoke was a recipe that caused countless unnecessary deaths in Montreal's history.
  Here's a typically true gruesome killer cigarette fire scanario: chainsmoker Francine Cote dozed off at her home at  725 7th Ave. in Pointe aux Trembles on 1 September 1995 while her husband was working the graveyard shift.
   Cote had a lit cigarette going when she fell into slumberland.
   At about 3:30 a.m. her unextinguished cigarette lit a blaze that killed three of her sleeping children, baby Eden, Steven 11 and Marc, 9. She survived.
   Here are just a couple out of the hundreds of items about Montreal's unfortunate experience with cigarette fires. 

1899  The 54 fires of July 1899 were reportedly caused by stoves and lamps 6, careless smoking 5, defective chimney 6, overheating 4,  careless matches, lamps etc. 7, unknown 8. children playing with matches 8, tramps 4, hot ashes, 1 gas jets, 1, electric wires, 3, rats and matches, 1.
     

1925  Six were killed at 19 Ste. Agathe Lane on 3 January 1925 when a smouldering cigarette butt was lodged in a beaverboard wall.

1928 A news item was published across North America reporting that a three-year-old Montreal child had developed a smoking addiction that caused a fire that did major damage to the home of Mr. Henry Lamarche and family at 6336 Alma, according to Fire Commissioner Quin

1961 Four were killed and five injured when fire caused by discarded cigarette swept through three story apartment building on June 16. 

1974  40 percent of the 1,475 fires in Montreal were caused by cigarettes.

1995Careless smoking caused 200 of the 1684 fires, killing 16. Nine of those 16 were smoking-related. (there were about 100 smoking-fire deaths across Canada that year.)

2002 Journalist Jenny Ross, who spent eight years covering various local bands for alternative weekly newspapers, died after falling asleep with a cigarette going at her downtown apartment.