Candles, fires, warning labels

Warning!!! Fire can cause, er, a bigger fire

By Arthur Weinreb, Associate Editor,

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Health Canada is considering passing regulations regarding candles that include the possibility of putting labels on the product that will warn consumers that lighting a candle could cause a household fire.

According to the agencys website, fires can be caused when people leave burning candles unattended. The most common causes of these fires are burning candles close to flammable material and leaving them where the can be easily knocked over by children or household pets.

When a government agency puts, or thinks about putting warning labels on a product, it is different from the same being done by the private sector. For example, most major fast food outlets now have warnings on their coffee cups, advising their customers that the contained beverage is "hot" and advising them to "be careful". These warnings of course are not put on the cups to protect the consumer; they are placed there to protect the fast food establishment from lawsuits that develop when people drive fast, spill their coffee, get burned, have an accident, become quadriplegics and then sue the restaurant for not telling them that the hot coffee was indeed, hot and therefore likely to distract a driver when he or she spills it.

But when the federal government spends our tax dollars to warn us that lighting a small fire atop a candle could cause a larger fire if put right next to the drapes or where Fido or Fluffy can easily knock it over, it is a completely different matter. It seems like a complete waste of money, something that is not unknown to government bureaucracies, to warn us that fire can be dangerous or that small fires that are left unattended can lead to bigger fires. Some of Health Canadas critics have described the proposed move as "silly".

An incident occurred last weekend that suggests perhaps that putting warning labels on products that do nothing but state the obvious may not be quite as unnecessary as it first seems. In the middle of the recent heat wave, the daughter and granddaughter of 97-year-old Phyllis Arnott left her in a parked car while they went into a nicely air conditioned shopping mall in Burlington Ontario to do some shopping. The windows of the car were only slightly opened and the elderly woman who weighed less than 100 pounds lacked the strength to open the doors to escape the heat. The police who freed her estimated that the temperature in the vehicle was about 50 degrees Celsius. Arnott was taken to a hospital suffering from dehydration and crying that she just wanted to go home where she lived with her daughter and granddaughter something that she will not be allowed to do until the criminal charges against the two younger women are disposed of.

Much like the people who dont intend to burn down their homes or their neighbourhoods when they leave burning candles unattended, Bonnie Bouclair, Phyllis Arnotts 60-year-old daughter said, "Its not like we left her in the car to die." What is truly amazing is during heat waves such as the one that occurred in Southern Ontario last weekend there are constant warnings in the media about heat alerts and extreme heat alerts. The media also warns listeners and viewers, to the point of being annoying, about the dangers of leaving children and pets in unattended vehicles during the blistering heat.

What happened to Phyllis Arnott is of course not the fault of her caring relatives; its is obviously the fault of the media. They issue warnings about leaving children and pets in overheated cars but never bother to point out what can happen when you leave Granny in the car. They should all be sued!

After hearing about what happened to this fragile 97-year-old woman who could have easily broiled to death in that car, it becomes more difficult to argue that requiring candles be labelled to warn of the danger of fire is in fact, "silly". These types of warnings are aimed of course at the lowest common denominator in society.

What is really difficult to believe is how low this denominator can actually be.

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Toronto Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: Columns 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 '00 1999 Media 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 Toronto 2006 '05 '04