Fire-safe cigarettes are designed to stop burning when left unattended. If Sen. Rosalind Kurita (D -Clarksville) has her way, it will be the only kind of cigarette available for purchase in Tennessee.

Fire-safe cigarettes look like typical cigarettes, and the tobacco is also the same. However, two rings in the paper absorb heat, and slow down the burning process. They are not available in Tennessee, and Kurita wants to change that.

"The paper has speed bumps in the paper, that's meant to slow down the combustion process," Chief Shane Ray with the Pleasant View Fire Department said.

If left unattended, the speed bumps put out the cigarette. The special paper has the potential to prevent fires and resulting deaths. Last October, a man died in a Goodlettesville motel room as the result of a cigarette left unattended. From 2000 to 2004, 36 other Tennesseans died in fires caused by cigarettes. From 2000 to 2004, 673 of 800 fires were started by cigarettes. More than $13 million in property damage was caused by those fires.

Kurita is making sure these fire-safe cigarettes really work. She's pushing a bill that would make them the only type available in Tennessee.

"This is something legislatively that we can actually accomplish that will help you be able to protect lives," Kurita said to Ray.

Pleasant View Firefighters did three tests to see if the fire-safe cigarettes actually stopped burning before the regular ones. Each time, they did.

"Now the other thing that we did was we let a smoker smoke one of each to see if there was any taste difference, and they proclaim that there was no difference," Vickie Pritchett with the Pleasant View Fire Department said.

The fire-safe cigarettes do not cost more than regular ones, and tobacco companies have fire-safe versions available for every brand.

In Canada and in six states in the U.S., the fire-safe cigarettes are the only ones available. Kentucky lawmakers are also considering the idea. Lawmakers should start debating the issue soon.

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