Cigarettes for sale in Australia will be subject to stringent new regulations to reduce the fire risk from smouldering butts.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced a new mandatory standard which will require cigarettes to be tested for combustibility.
“Cigarettes will be subject to performance standards and a testing regime which will reduce the likelihood of inadvertent fires occurring when smouldering cigarettes are left near combustible materials,” said Chris Bowen, federal consumer affairs minister, in a statement.
Cigarette makers will be required to change their products to ensure they self-extinguish more readily, before the regulations come into force in March 2010. The regulations were drafted after the NSW state government raised the issue at the April meeting of Australia's police and emergency management ministers. 
A study conducted by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Science found that between June 2000, and June 2006, 67 deaths nationally were caused by cigarette-related fires. (pi)