Potentially fatal foam fills most furniture

It’s everywhere in your home.
In your furniture, your mattress, and underneath your carpet.


One Valley woman contends, it could kill you.
It’s the polyurethane foam that cushions your most common household furniture.
Robbie Nunley says that fatal foam took her son’s life five years ago this month.
Now, hear her story and her stern warning for your family.
“My cousin met me at the road and told me my son hadn’t made it. That none of them had made it,” said Robbie Nunley.
Nunley soon found out “they,” her son Jeremy Wilburn, and three others, never had a chance.
Video and snapshots after that fatal Meridianville fire in 2002 show the damage left behind.
“Within ten seconds the foam had started putting off cyanide and carbon monoxide and it took 10 to 15 seconds to kill the kids,” she said.
A dropped cigarette ignited the couch, but the polyurethane foam inside their sofa fueled the fire.
“It was unnecessary for them to die. They could have gotten out if it hadn’t been for the foam,” said Nunley. 
Polyurethane foam’s been used to make upholstered furniture for decades.
It’s used mainly because it’s cheap and it’s comfortable.
As shown in demonstrative video, it can also be deadly.
In just seconds, an upholstery furniture fire can consume a room, fill it with thick, black, smoke and kill you.
The WAFF 48 Investigators conducted our own fire test using a loveseat made with flammable polyurethane foam.  
Since most upholstery furniture fires start in the crevice of the couch, that’s where we place our flame.  
Trying to keep our demonstration as scientific as possible, we’re told to keep our flame on the couch for at least 15 seconds, but it takes only 3 seconds for the couch to catch.  
The flame licks away, creeps upwards and spreads.  
One minute later the coils of the couch are exposed, the springs are melting.
Two minutes later, the cushions are charred, the couch an inferno, fire literally drips onto the ground.
Less than three minutes into the fire you can see the couch is almost gone.
If it were in your living room, it would be at a point called flashover.
This means the walls would be peeling, the ceiling and the floor would be on fire.
If the flames didn’t kill you, the toxic poisons would.
“I need people to realize how quickly it can happen,” said Nunley. 
Attorney Clay Martin has tried case after case where people died in house fires ignited by upholstery furniture, including Robbie Nunley’s case.
He says companies wouldn’t pay a great deal more to make a life-saving change.
“In some cases $1 or $2 to have treated foam compared to non-treated foam,” he said.
“I still scratch my head today as to why there haven’t been changes,” said Martin.
The Polyurethane Foam Association disputes those costs and says that fire retardant treatments don’t make furniture fireproof.
The PFA says they favor a national flammability standard, but the chemicals it would take to make foam truly fire retardant may have some serious health risks and that element needs further study.
If the foam in your furniture concerns you, there are two things you can look for.
One, is furniture approved by the Upholstery Furniture Action Council.
Furniture with a UFAC hangtag means it meets construction criteria designed to reduce the likelihood  of upholstery fires.
Also, you can look for furniture that has a tag called California Technical Bulletin 117.
California is the only state with a mandatory standard for home upholstery furniture.
Keep in mind though, some experts argue even the above standards are ineffective.