Polyurethane is Highly Flammable

That means a house fire that started with polyurethane foam reaches flashover—the point at which everything in the room is burning—very quickly.

Fire experts believe that flashover is a death sentence for anyone still in the room. Family members only have a few crucial minutes to escape a polyurethane foam fire before the house becomes a blazing inferno.

Polyurethane Gases Poison While Flames Burn

Perhaps even more insidiously, burning polyurethane foam emits a gas called hydrogen cyanide, which is poisonous to humans. In fact, hydrogen cyanide is so toxic that it was used by the Aum Shinrikyo terrorists who attacked Tokyo's subway system in 1995, and in Nazi death camps during World War II. The gas was also implicated in the 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 people, including Great White guitarist Ty Longley, and injured more than 200 others. Tellingly, a witness to that fire, television news cameraman Brian Butler, told interviewers that "It had to be two minutes, tops, before the whole place was black smoke."

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Highly Flammable Product Injuries - Legal Help

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