Match-Safety Tips for Parents and Children

Americans use more than 500 billion matches per year to light anything from birthday candles to campfires. Watching their parents light candles, gas stoves or barbecues, children

often become fascinated with the allure of dancing flames and sparks.

Because children have a natural curiosity about fire, they might experiment with it when adults are not around to supervise. That’s why it is important to teach children at an early age about match safety and the danger of fire, as well as the difference between a controlled flame and one that is unsafe.

Birthday parties and other family events provide opportunities for parents to demonstrate match and fire safety. Diamond, the No. 1 producer of wooden matches in the United States, offers the following safety tips.

* Always keep matches in a secured drawer or locked cabinet away from curious children.

* Encourage children to tell an adult when they have found matches in a place that is easily accessible to them.

* When lighting candles on a birthday cake, use the occasion to discuss match safety with children and demonstrate proper safety practices. Use Diamond’s Birthday Candle Matches, which are twice as long as standard wooden matches, to easily light candles and keep your fingertips away from the flame’s reach.

* Once a match is used, discard it properly. If you blow out a match and throw it in the trash, there is a danger that it might not be totally extinguished. To reduce this risk, use the Diamond MatchGuard, a new matchbox design with a push-to-open match drawer and safety disposal chamber for extinguished matches.