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Serta takes lead with production of safer mattresses

Report from Pacific Fire laboratory

Burning bed test video

The Providence Journal commissions a fire laboratory in Washington state to burn a bed -- and the results demonstrate the ferocity of household fires involving polyurethane foam.

Mattresses and bedding sold in America could be safer, but the federal government so far has not required tougher national flammability standards. The technology exists to make our beds safer, but the government and industry have been slow to embrace it.

Upholstered furniture fires killed 17,108 Americans from 1980 through 1998, the latest year for which complete figures are available. Most of the upholstered furniture sold today contains some polyurethane foam, which burns intensely and releases gases that can quickly render a person unconscious.

Polyurethane foam, used to soundproof The Station nightclub stage, is everywhere in American homes -- in upholstered furniture and mattresses, in pillows and carpet padding. When foam catches fire, it can kill with deadly speed. Yet many of us are unaware of its dangers.