tam_shops said:
Jennie, while I agree w/ you about the chemicals in kids pjs, kids don't carry around candles anymore and they are not in their regular clothes when they are more likely to accidentally catch fire, process the car seat cover this way: Most are made of polyester. When polyester gets too HOT (does not require fire) it melts. And, if it gets way to hot it can start a fire. If the kids had been in
Lilsid's car when it caught fire, mom would have had a chance at getting them out. Depsite the direct flames (look at the never washed & heavily chemical coated car seats in the picture), they too were melted-from length and duration of flame exposure, chemicals can only do so much. If there were no chemicals on those covers, they would have melted to the kid's skin and/or caught direct fire, despite not being part of the original fire and done damage of their own. In other words, if it were not for the chemicals in the car's interior and those in the Britax covers/plastic, both cars would have looked like the one that started the fire--gutted and black. It is actually why they started adding the chemicals to the cars in the first place b/c one car would catch fire and another would join the party and all occupants would suffer the consequences. You're obviously taking an educated/intelligent stance to not liking chemicals, just thought I'd give you a reason to better like *some* of them, in some places.
It's not a matter of just "not liking" the chemicals. It's a matter of believing that they really do no good in car seats.
I have discussed the topic--including these specific photos--many times and in great depth with my husband, who has been a fireman for more than 30 years.
He says that he does not see evidence, from those photos, that there was flame intrusion inside the van (i.e., the interior of the van was never on fire). The damage seen was from ambient heat and smoke from the flames on the exterior of the van.
Fire retardants aren't designed to stop the spread of fire caused by a tiny flame like a cigarette. They are not designed to ward off an inferno.
Standard No. 302 - Flammability of Interior Materials - Passenger Cars, Multipurpose Passenger Vehicles, Trucks, and Buses
(Effective 9-1-72)
This standard specifies burn resistance requirements for materials used in the occupant compartments of motor vehicles. Its purpose is to reduce deaths and injuries to motor vehicle occupants caused by vehicle fires, especially those originating in the interior of the vehicle from sources such as matches or cigarettes.
They test materials by exposing them to flame, then taking the flame away. In a vehicle fire, the flame is constant. Vehicle fires are also extremely fast-moving, especially once they reach the interior. At that point, the flames and heat will be so intense that the flame-retardants will be ineffective. The seat is going to catch on fire anyway, and smoke inhalation and heat are likely to kill a child before the flames do.
This is the same reason we have mattresses custom-made to not include a fire barrier. He feels that unless you smoke in bed or use candles next to the bed, the flame barrier in a mattress really serves no purpose. The heat and smoke will kill you before you burn.
My husband is not flippant about fire safety. He's actually quite obsessive about it. If he felt the flame-retardency served any purpose, I'm sure he'd be a passionate supporter of it, but he's not.
DH feels the flame-retardency MIGHT buy you 1-5 seconds in a vehicle fire.
He said the only scenarios where flame-resistant car seat covers would be beneficial is in a case like what the standard was designed for, where (for example) a cigarette is flicked into the backseat, especially when there is an open window. The wind could fan the ember from the cigarette and cause the material to ignite. A flame-retardant cover would likely ward that off. But that's a lot different than a vehicle engulfed in flames.
Maybe the fact that people still smoke in the car with children is enough to make that a valid reason for their use. (It's illegal to smoke in a car with children in my state, but I'm not sure other places have the same law, and it doesn't mean people don't anyway.)