Fire-test for dress fabric

Press, 11 August 1980, Page 13

Fire-test for dress fabric

PA Palmerston North A length of material similar to a skirt that caught fire and seriously burned a Palmerston North girl has been sent to the Consumers Institute in Wellington for examination.

Kathy Mitchell, aged 16, a machinist, was badly burned when her Indonesian-print cotton-synthetic skirt burst into flames while she was standing in front of a fire at her home. She has been in Lower Hutt Hospital almost three weeks and it will be another two months before she leaves, probably on crutches and badly scarred. The fire-safety officer of the Wanganui branch of the Fire Service, Mr E. McPake, said yesterday that a Consumers Institute officer had told him there had been a similar accident in Christchurch. ‘‘ln the Palmerston North case, I believed the girl was standing two feet away from the open fire,” he said. “There is nothing special to date in information about the material. It was a type of cotton, and cotton is a very combustible dress fabric.”

A Consumers Institute spokeswoman said that nearly all fabrics burned and the public awareness of that fact must be their No 1 safeguard from injury. A length of printed fabric similar to that worn by Miss Mitchell had been sent by Mr McPake, to the institute, but

that sample had been cotton, It was thought Miss Mitchell’s skirt had been a cot-ton-polyester mixture, said the spokeswoman. People buying fabric to sew, or ready-made garments had to look for three points: The fibre content of that material, the construction of the fabric, and the style of the garment. “The fact is that almost all everyday clothing fabrics will burn,” she said. Cellulose fabrics such as cotton and rayon were like paper and burned quickly. Synthetic fabrics would usually melt and shrink from a flame but would go on burning if they were of a synthetic cotton or rayon mixture. One of the few fabrics with fire resistance was wool. If fabrics.were light-weight or loosely woven, they would burn more easily than those more densely woven. Tightfitting garments burned slowly because the air could not get in freely. However, loosefitting garments such as a long skirt, frocks, and dressing gowns, could burn fast because they created a chimney effect.

The only regulations in New Zealand dealing with flammability were those covering Children’s nightclothing, the spokeswoman said. The director of fire safety for the Fire Services Commission, Mr K. Burton-Wood said he had opened a file on the case.