It’s official! One of the bastions of all that’s good and respected about the UK capital is backing vaping as a means to kick the tobacco-smoking habit – yes, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) has officially recognised e-cig use can help people get off the ciggies and so potentially save lives – in more ways than one.
Obviously, one of the LFB’s biggest concerns is fire prevention in its city and this is its motivation for backing vaping; to its mind, if people were vaping instead of smoking, the number of fire hazards across London would fall. It’s as simple as that.
Fact-checking
And the firefighters were thoughtful enough to put meat on the bones of their vaping-friendly argument; pointing out what they claimed wasn’t merely an opinion, but fact supported by solid statistics drawn from the results of academic research. These statistics suggest that those who manage to kick tobacco consumption into touch live longer often due to the fact they’re far less likely to lose their life in a blaze caused by an errant lit cigarette setting a house on fire.
For proof of the safety of vaping compared to smoking then, the LFB published a Facebook post; a post that coincided with Public Health England’s ‘Stoptober’, the major smoke-quitting campaign held in October of last year. In the post, the LFB cited the fact that although smokers only outnumber vapers in the capital by a ratio of four to one, there are currently as many as 225 times the number of smoking-related fires in the city than there are vaping-related ones. Moreover, Dan Daly, the LFB’s Assistant Commissioner for Fire Safety, commented that that specific statistic is representative of another dramatically imbalanced one – over the past three years, 3,500 fires in London have been caused in some way because of smoking; 15 in some way by e-cigarettes.
Daly was also quick to point that multiple fires in recent years have had to be tackled, tamed and eventually put out by London firefighters have been caused by improperly put-out and disposed-of cigarettes. In fact, he said that, while only nine percent of accidental fires are effectively caused by smoking, the number of fire-deaths caused by smoking currently stands at more than 50 percent. And this is in spite of the fact that, in total, the smoking population of London has been decreasing year-on-year for the past five years – down from 18.2 percent of the city’s population in 2012 to 15.2 percent when the figure was most recently recorded.
Fire-deaths caused by vaping? Zero
And, yes, that statement’s also true; according to the LFB’s website, nobody in the UK capital has so far been reportedly injured, let alone killed by a fire caused by vaping or an e-cig device. Now, when you think about that fact in relation to all the previous, highly alarming ones recorded here (via the LFB) about smoking-related fires and fire-deaths, the contrast is staggering, frankly.
Of course, there’s no denying that, given any electronic device – including e-cigs and mods – carries the potential risk of causing a fire (however tiny that may be), vaping ought to be carried out via use of an appropriate and safe charger and batteries; especially those bought from a reputable vape shop or online retailer. That said, though, thanks to the LFB’s far from insignificant contribution to the ongoing conversation of vaping vs. smoking, there’s now even more ammunition for the argument that quitting smoking for vaping won’t just improve your health, but could save your life!
