The nation's three largest tobacco companies have agreed to voluntarily sell only so-called "fire-safe" cigarettes in Baltimore, sidelining a proposed local ordinance, the Associated Press reported March 14.

The Baltimore Department of Health had proposed last fall to ban sales of all cigarettes that were not manufactured to reduce the risk of fire. The ban would have gone into effect in July, but Philip Morris, R.J Reynolds, and Lorillard Tobacco agreed to start selling the fire-safe versions of their products starting in April.

The fire-safe cigarettes are designed to extinguish more readily when left unattended; 50 Baltimore residents have died in fires started by unattended cigarettes in the past eight years.