Hey, there! Log in / Register
Smokers to blame for large fires in Charlestown, East Boston and Dorchester, fire officials say
By adamg on Thu, 08/04/2016 - 2:17pm
The Boston Fire Department is blaming "careless disposal of smoking materials" on decks for a six-alarm fire on Bunker Hill Street in Charlestown on July 21, a five-alarm fire the next day on Chelsea Street in East Boston and a four-alarm fire on Sawyer Avenue in Dorchester on July 26.
BFD says it's past time for smokers to stop burning buildings down:
All started outside on decks. No civilian injuries. Total apts/condos involved:23, displaced 54, dollar loss $10,000,000.+
We continue to stress MAKE SURE you COMPLETELY extinguish your cigarette, cigar or whatever else you smoke.
Finally, planters are not ashtrays. And make sure you having working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors wherever you live.
A BFD spokesman adds that investigators believe the Charlestown fire was started by a hand-rolled cigarette dropped in a planter, that the East Boston fire was started by a smoker on the third floor who dropped a cigarette that landed on the first-floor deck and the Dorchester fire involved an imported cigarette on the first-floor deck. Investigators were unable to tell if that fire started in a planter or on the floor of the deck.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Ugh
Fucking smokers. Stupid, disgusting people.
Which smokers are you
Which smokers are you referring to? I want names. Oh, I got it now! You like to stereotype. Fucking stereotypers. Stupid disgusting people.
All of you
I only very rarely find a responsible smoker - one who does NOT fling lit butts around, who DOES carry the necessary ashtray that closes who does NOT throw ciggies out of their car, who doesn't make excuses for their nasty habit.
I guess the kind of idiot who would willfully inhale addictive carcinogens can't be expected to be responsible in other dimensions of their life.
Meanwhile, are you going to pay for that mess?
No stereotypes needed, just
No stereotypes needed, just facts. Smokers start fires, give people cancer, litter dozens of times per day and drive up healthcare costs for everyone else. They literally and figuratively create huge messes for others to pick up, be it their discarded butts, scorched forests, burnt houses or huge medical bills. Those are the facts.
Exactly!
.
Now now now, addiction is a
Now now now, addiction is a disease and the smokers are slaves to their drug dealer, the tobacco companies. Don't protect the opiate addicts but shun the nicotine addicts.
Then make tobacco illegal
It is one of the most dangerous drugs.
Or just crackdown on illegal cigarette disposal - I would bet these lit butt flingers that caused all this mayhem aren't any better behaved on the street or in their cars. Nail 'em!
I read an interesting article
I read an interesting article about marijuana that had an aside that stated, if Tobacco was looked at today, it would probably end up a Class 1.
Cigarette Smokers
And I'm standing firm on my opinion of them because of what I see EVERY day and stories like this.
Whatever
And I've been smoking for 30 years and have yet to light anything untoward on fire yet. There are careless people who don't smoke too. Should we just castigate everyone? Or just be tolerant of that which you don't understand?
Smoking will kill you. No one
Smoking will kill you. No one can credibly claim to not know this, so it's not mere "ignorance." Hence, smokers=stupid.
Smokers smell like stale burnt stuff. I have yet to learn of an odorless cigarette. Hence, smokers=disgusting.
$$$ ?
Will insurance pay if the cause is found to be cigarettes??
There should be an additional
There should be an additional $1 tax on every pack. Proceeds go to injured firemen and families who lost their homes because some idiot smoker burned down their house. And just once I'd love to see a smoker be given a ticket for littering.
"Will insurance pay if the
Yes, but they may go after the responsible parties. I have a friend whose guest carelessly threw a cigarette butt onto his porch deck. The building caught on fire and had a heavy amount of damage. The friend is being sued for $600k by the insurance company.
Buttheads
Buttheads
"BFD says it's past time for
"BFD says it's past time for smokers to stop burning buildings down:..."
Yeah, I recall the time before it was past time for that. You know, when smokers didn't need to stop burning buildings down...
???
Let BFD set an outstanding
Let BFD set an outstanding example to the whole city by 1) staging a mass smoke out in which the participants are any and all BFD personnel who smoke, and 2) doing the same thing for all city residents.
Then have smoking by any and all BFD personnel banned (at least during work) and watch the unions stomp on that.
1988 NY Times....
From a 1988 New York Times article:
BOSTON, Oct. 1— Massachusetts has become the first state to prohibit newly hired police officers and firefighters from smoking on or off the job.
The state has joined a growing number of cities and towns that are placing restrictions on the ability of public safety employees to smoke at all, either through departmental regulations or collective bargaining.
The Massachusetts smoking law has been in place since the beginning of the year, but regulations governing its application become effective Thursday. People who violate the smoking prohibition can be dismissed.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/02/us/police-and-fire-depts-face-massachu...
Thanks. I've got some reading
Thanks. I've got some reading to catch up on.
Unless, of course, the goon squads got it reversed. Yes, I mean the unions.
No smoking on or off the job
Ever, anywhere - at least not enough such that you would flunk a cotinine test.
Yes, you can test for smoking during a physical.
Hypocrites
No shit....bet every one of you righteous indignant assholes drink- right. Now despite the fact that drunken assholes drive cars and kill people, buying and consuming alcohol is legal. Causes fetal defects, wrecks families....the whole fucking nine....and that's a-ok. But smoke.....yes LEGALLY and you just suck.....wow, hypocrites like I said. Now the market, caters to your ass....candy liquor and beer to go with your fake candy ass e-cigarettes or capes....you all suck when you smoke. But try and buy and ashtray in any store.....go ahead, they don't sell em anymore....and if they do, plastic and prolly' made in China.....so yes.....they melt. So yup....people toss em and yup.....it's pretty stupid......so let's bring glass ashtrays back or do some promo videos on safe disposal as we do don't drink and drive ads......we're still out there but they only want your money..... In the meantime all u smokers out there...go get that old water bottle u know the one with the bad chemicals they stopped selling....fill it with some dirty water and plunk at will. Smoke em if you got em folks
Sure, I drink
But I bike, walk, or take the T when I do, or negotiate with my spouse/friends as to who drives and who stays sober.
I don't fling lit pieces of litter about that destroy lives and homes and injure firefighters.
This isn't about hypocrisy or drinking - it is about RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR BAD HABITS.
How about this: do you ALWAYS extinguish what you throw? Do you carry an ashtray that suffocates the butts with you everywhere like my parents used to?
I'm betting not.
If I could go a SINGLE day without seeing a motorist fling a lit piece of litter or a pedestrian just drop a lit piece of litter, as if dropping or flinging lit pieces of litter made lit pieces of litter vanish and rendered lit pieces of litter harmless, I might buy into your frame of reference here. Sad to say, the same sort of recklessness that leads to smoking seems to come with delusions of self-extinguishing litter.
PS: you need to learn how to use the internet if you can't find a proper butt handling system: http://www.1stclasshumidors.com/etheral-cigarette-ashtray-black.html?gcl...
I drink, but I don't get
I drink, but I don't get drunk. Or drive when I do so. Or throw empty beer bottles/cans around like cigarette butts.
This is horrible!
This makes me wish that cigarettes would be banned altogether. There are too many irresponsible smokers who just don't give a shit about other people.
Singled Out
There was a big kitchen fire around the corner from me the other night, reported on here. Should we ban cooking too?
Cooking is necessary
Cigarettes are not.
Wrong
Smoking is mandatory.