Plastic filings in sofas and mattresses burn much faster than older filings like cotton, helping to transform the behavior of house fires in the last few decades, firefighters and engineers say. With more plastic in homes, residential fires are now likely to use up all the oxygen in a room before they consume all flammable materials.

“Years ago you could break a window and it took the fire several minutes to develop — or tens of minutes”, a fire battalion chief in Queens, GEorge K. Healy, said.