The Reasons Why You Shouldn't Play with Matches

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that 65 percent of fires children start are ignited by children playing with matches or lighters. Children younger under two have set lethal blazes. Stanford's Lucille Packard Children's Hospital indicates that 70 percent of deaths in fires are caused by smoke inhalation, and young children may not understand that staying low is essential in preventing asphyxiation. Parents need to teach fire safety and emphasize the dangers of playing with matches to their children from the time they're toddlers.

Contribution to Behavioral Problems

• Children's curiosity about fire is natural, but obsessive interest can signify a behavioral disorder that a mental health provider needs to address. Fire play describes experimentation with fire by children too young to understand the danger, and juvenile fire setting refers to deliberate arson committed by children who understand the gravity of their actions.

  Warning signs such as excessively fueling fires to create a dangerously large blaze and concealing matches and lighters indicate that a child is in danger of becoming a juvenile fire setter. These children may intentionally set fires as an act of defiance or as a distressed reaction to a traumatic event such as their parents' divorce or a death in the family.

Physical Danger

• Fires set by children kill approximately 113 people and injure 916 more every year. The University of Colorado's Children's Hospital reports that 78 percent of children treated for burns were injured in a fire set by themselves or another child, and children set 45 percent of the fires that resulted in their death or another child's death.

  Burn injuries can cause permanent disfigurement and loss of motion due to contraction of muscles and tendons, and physical rehabilitation for burn injuries can be extremely painful. Dr. Robert L. Sheridan of Shriners Burns Hospital notes that approximately 30 percent of serious burn injury survivors experience post-traumatic stress disorder.

Property Damage

• The NFPA reports that between 2004 and 2008, children playing with matches or other sources of fire ignited approximately 7,900 homes annually, causing $197 million in property damage. These fires endanger neighbors and the firefighters who extinguish them. Children playing with fire have also set wildfires such as the August 2010 blaze in California's El Monte Park, which burned over 1,000 acres and endangered homes and residents in Lakeside. Most states hold parents liable for damage their children cause by playing with matches, though the monetary cap on damages varies by state.