John Dean has made a career of putting out fires, and preventing them. But this one just keeps getting hotter.

Dean, Maine’s state fire marshal, has been caught up in a pitched battle over a flame retardant chemical used in consumer products such as TVs and electronics.

Environmental and public health advocates want Maine to phase out the chemical – called deca-BDE – because it’s also showing up in things like seal blubber, falcon eggs and human breast milk. The manufacturers who make it, meanwhile, don’t want any more states to ban it. (Washington’s Legislature became the first earlier this month.)

Dean has tried to contain the rhetoric with a little cool logic, but a firestorm flared up this week with controversial TV, radio and newspapers ads paid for by the manufacturers.

Maine’s Legislature is considering phasing out the chemical’s use in residential products after state officials reported that there is increasing evidence from tests on lab animals that poses a health threat to people, and that there are alternative chemicals that seem to be safer.

The Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, which represents the manufacturers, has been arguing that there’s no evidence that deca-BDE is harming anyone. And their ads have focused on the argument that banning it will put more people and homes at risk of fires.

One TV ad shows a blazing fire and says “special interests want to ban flame-resistent products that help prevent fires … keep Maine families safe.”

Well, that really burned up Maine’s firefighting community. Maine’s Professional Firefighters, the Maine Fire Chief’s Association and the State Fire Marshal’s Office issued a statement this week supporting the phase-out and calling the ads “deceptive” and “nothing but cheap scare tactics.”

Along with being Maine’s fire marshal, Dean is the president of the National Association of Fire Marshals and has followed the deca controversy all over the country, as well as in Europe.

He said the science is not yet clear, to him anyway, whether deca is a health threat to people. But, he said, he supports the ban because of the increasing health concerns – and the availability of alternatives.

“There are other chemicals that can be used that we are assured are much safer,” he said.

Dean said he warned friends in the flame retardant business that the ads were a mistake. And he objected to the use of a video clip of him posted on the industry group’s Web site. In the clip, he tells a TV reporter that sofa cushions can be so flammable that sitting on them is like sitting on a bag of gasoline.

“That’s the truth.” But, he said, “they’ve turned that into a support of deca....They were supposed to take that off.”

It’s clear from the heat surrounding this bill that there’s more at stake than TV casings in Maine.

One big principle seems to be whether the chemical should be phased out before there’s clear proof that it’s done harm. Legislators will be sorting that and other questions out when they take up the bill Wednesday.

As for whether homes and lives would be put at risk from more fires, Dean and other firefighters say they are ready to smother that one.

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