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Ottawa firefighters seeing 'more and more' planter fires, chief says

Fire at home in south Ottawa, no injuries

Ottawa firefighters are seeing a rising number of fires caused by smokers butting out their cigarettes in planters, a worrying trend that's contributed to the highest number of fire incidents in recent years, the city's fire chief says.

"We certainly have noticed there's a rise in fires started by improperly discarded cigarettes, in particular those that are discarded in planters," Ottawa Fire Chief Gerry Pingitore told CBC News. "And they seem to be causing the largest, most significant fires that we're having in the Ottawa area.

Pingitore said the department is dealing with "more and more" planter fires.

"It's just mind-boggling that people would use that type of item to butt out a cigarette."

Fire numbers highest since 2012

There were 1,126 fire "incidents" last year, according to the fire service's annual report, to be tabled at a meeting of the city's community and protective services committee on Thursday.

That's a 22.3 per cent increase over the 2014 total of 923 fires.

However the chief said he couldn't call the increase a trend because the number of incidents spiked in 2012 at 1,277 before decreasing for the next two years. And some of the increase could be due to brush and grass fires, said Pingitore.

While fire investigators are dealing with an increase in fires started in planters, there are no exact numbers because it's often impossible to determine the exact cause of a fire. Investigators can usually narrow down the cause by ruling out certain factors, such as whether there's a nearby electrical outlet.

Investigators may also interview residents to find out whether smokers tend to congregate in the area where the fire began.

"Certainly, quite often we can pinpoint or surmise that [a planter] would have been the cause" Pingitore explained.

Residents often unaware fire raging

In June, for example, a witness saw a fire start in a planter that destroyed a home in a trailer park in Bells Corners. And last year, a fire started by a cigarette in a planter caused millions of dollars in damage to a three-storey building near Algonquin College, displacing 75 people.

"What's really scary about those fires is they happen during the night," said the chief. "Many of these fires are starting on the outside of homes, working their way into roofs and the people inside have no idea that the building or the structure is on fire."

While most people have smoke alarms that could alert them to a kitchen fire, residents may not get the same warning when a fire is burning outside. Those are the fires that often involve loss of life, according to the chief.

Pingitore said he didn't know whether the observed increase was due to more people smoking outdoors, or whether there's more flammable material in the planters — such as mulch or moss, as opposed to earth — than there used to be.

The fire department recommends keeping a metal bucket with water or sand outdoors for smokers to put out their cigarettes.

The issue has been a concern for some time, so much so that late last fall, the department launched a campaign to warn smokers of the dangers of using planters as ashtrays.