A new ban on high fire risk cigarettes will prevent thousands of blazes each year, the NSW Fire Brigade says.
Fire Brigade commissioner Greg Mullins says that from next Tuesday only cigarettes designed to self-extinguish can be produced or imported into Australia.
"The new cigarettes, when not smoked actively will put themselves out," he told reporters on Thursday.
But he added, "People need to know that no cigarette is safe," he said.
Mr Mullins said 4,500 fires were caused by cigarettes each year in Australia.
"When I was a young firefighter the first fatality I went to in 1979 was a person smoking in bed," he said.
According to coroners' reports at least 77 people lost their lives in cigarette-related fires between 2000 and 2005.
"I think the figures are understated because many fires have an undetermined cause," Mr Mullins said.
Tobacco retailers have until September 2010 to sell their existing stocks of non-compliant cigarettes.
Mr Mullins assured smokers the new cigarettes would not change the smoking experience.
"The research from New York, UK and the European Union is that consumers notice no difference, in cost or in taste," he said.
Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan said NSW had pushed for the national ban because tobacco companies had been reluctant to introduce the new cigarettes.
"Manufacturers haven't wanted to do this that's why it's important that the government has actually pushed this," he said.
"It's a bit of a black mark on the cigarette industry that they haven't done this on their own accord."
Action on Smoking and Health spokesman professor Simon Chapman hailed the ban.
"What is disgraceful in all this, is that Australian tobacco companies have had the know-how to introduce reduced fire risk cigarettes for many years, but chose not to do so," he said.
"They apparently cared more about the fact that these cigarettes can often go out - irritating smokers - than the fact that their products were the cause of so much unnecessary death and destruction."
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