That only works with packages of cigarettes. If you buy tubes and tobacco and roll your own they still burn on their own because they generally aren't packed as tightly as store bought and air circulates through the tobacco. Also, you can get a store bought smoke to continue to burn if you leave the filter elevated beyond certain angles. Ex. if it's held vertically with the filter at the top, it burns faster than normal and won't go out due to the air current the heat and smoke create.
You could easily get around the cigarette paper issues, what you can't get around is the sulfur from the matches. Ignition points are almost always visible and now days are almost always tested for sulfur and other trace evidence. You'd have to be more creative then matches.
Most definitely right on about roll your owns (that'd be a creative way around the safety bands), but as for commercial smokes here (probably the same type of papers as anywhere else in the world whose gone "fire safe", but idk for sure), it may work in theory and probably does with some brands more than others (no actual testing info I can find either way), but with the safety bands they incorporate into the papers now, it's almost impossible to keep them lit for any length of time no matter what you do to them - hit the filter too light, blow on the end of them to stoke them, turn them upside down to increase the burn (chem/physics), lay them at a 45 degree angle (as in an ashtray), or leave them otherwise unattended for more than a few seconds and they're out. I don't think I've met a smoker since they came out with them I haven't seen, talked to, or overheard who hasn't pitched a bitch fit about how inconvenient and annoying it is to have to keep relighting them. *L* It's definitely made smoking parents have to buy real punks for their kids to light fireworks on the 4th of July now, too. Never did like kids lighting them w/cigarettes anyway, so that's a good thing, IMO.
Agreed on not getting around the sulphur with matches, too. If nothing else, fire dogs can pick up the slightest scent, so even though that doesn't prove anything was deliberate (people do drop matches, kids play with them, etc.), it can be criteria for suspicious ignition.
Re: the arson method with the 'cigarette trick'
@cubby described above which I remembered but couldn't remember exactly how it was done, all I could really find on a how-to was from the Animal Lib. anarchy group I ref'ed who gives a step by step instructions of how to do it (good, quick read, kinda like the Anarchist's Cookbook-type thing).
As for using "fire safety" cigarettes for arson, the only really comprehensive thing I could find (doesn't mean it's not there, just that I haven't found it yet) was from the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) here (it's a whopper of a site):
http://www.nfpa.org/safety-informat...re-safe-cigarettes/about-fire-safe-cigarettes.
You're a google master and a fellow stat/report lover, are/were you able to find anything solid on whether or not it's still high risk for commercial cigarettes, or if there are any specific brands that're more flammable/likely to burn longer than others? I'm also not finding any diff. between any of the generics and the name brand smokes here either, so I'm assuming it's national manufacturing SOP for all commercially-produced smokes. I'm just talking regular, commercial cigarettes rather than all the little cigarillos, cigars, wraps, etc. that aren't made with the "safety" paper (purposely using quotes around "safety", et al).
The fact that investigators weren't initially treating this as a suspicious fire is really bugging the crap outta me (as described in my last post before this one). I just can't buy the "shit happens" thing with the situation and timing on this one.