Product Safety – Foam-filled furniture: reducing harm from fire

Summary

Trading Standards, part of MBIE (the Ministry of Business, Innovations and Employment) is working with FENZ (Fire and Emergency New Zealand) on ways to reduce the harm caused by domestic fires.

Foam-filled furniture can play a significant role in the speed and severity of domestic fires. The foam can catch fire easily at relatively low temperatures and burn quickly and intensely, giving off suffocating poisonous smoke that can also spread fire quickly through a building.

The proposal is to introduce a Product Safety Policy Statement (PSPS) that sets desired safety benchmark fire-resistance ratings for foam-filled furniture supplied in New Zealand. The PSPS would identify the issues and what is expected of industry to improve the safety of their products to achieve better safety outcomes.