The Moncton fire department is calling on smokers to be more careful when they butt out after a series of fires have been connected to unattended cigarettes.
“I think it is becoming something serious enough for us to talk about it” said Moncton’s Deputy Fire Chief Don McCabe.
According to fire investigators, 6 of the 28 structure fires firefighters responded to in Moncton were caused by improperly discarded smokes.
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Five fire trucks were called to a five unit apartment complex on Winnipeg Street just before 10:30 a.m. on Friday morning after a tenant, Jeanette McFadden, reported smelling and seeing smoke.
“I opened my door and I could see the smoke that was in the hallway so I just grabbed my phone and called 911,” she said.
McCabe says the smoke was coming from in a bathroom garbage bin in one of the apartments.
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The cause was found to be improperly discarded smoking material.
“I don’t understand how someone could be so careless,” said McFadden.
McCabe said most of the fires caused by lit cigarettes this Spring have started outside of people’s homes.
Earlier this week, a fire at a duplex in north Moncton left four people temporarily homeless.
Moncton’s fire investigator said the fire appears to have been caused by a cigarette discarded outside.
“People don’t like smoking in their house so they are all smoking outside so they throw the cigarettes either under the steps around the steps and it’s not out,” said McCabe.
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He’s now asking residents to make sure they discard their butts in cans filled with water or sand and to clean them out regularly so the butts don’t accumulate.
His pet peeve as a fire official is when smokers throw their cigarettes out their car windows.
“I know of two fires that I can almost pinpoint where a cigarette was thrown on the lawn and the wind blew it to the mulch of the side of the house and we had a house fire an hour later,” he said.