About 1,000 deaths, 3,000 serious injuries, and several billion dollars in costs of property loss, health care and pain and suffering, result each year in the U.S. from fires started by dropped cigarettes. Efforts to prevent these losses have progressed from admonitory slogans to product-flammability standards to addressing the cigarette itself. Two recent federal studies have: a) concluded that it is technically feasible to produce a cigarette with a reduced likelihood of starting fires, and b) published a broadly validated method by which cigarette brands can be tested for this propensity. The long-term effort of scientists, legislators and public health activists to develop and implement a fire-safe cigarette standard also constitutes a legal liability challenge and a threat to the relative and absolute size of the cigarette market shares held by major U.S. tobacco companies.