Cigarette makers will have to start selling so-called “fire-safe” cigarettes in North Carolina under a bill signed into law by Gov. Mike Easley Friday, though it won’t take effect until 2010.

The bill requires that cigarettes sold in the state be made with special paper that includes two bands of material that smother and extinguish burning tobacco unless someone is actively puffing on the cigarette.

Advocates of the self-extinguishing cigarettes say they are a major source of fires and the leading cause of fatal fire deaths in North Carolina. Three medical professors at UNC Health Care led the effort, starting in December 2006, to lobby for the law.

In a news release, Easley said that as many as 50 fire-related deaths could be prevented each year by the new law.

Twenty-one other states have adopted similar laws, and North Carolina became the second major tobacco producing state to adopt such measures. Kentucky enacted a “fire-safe” cigarette law in March.

The N.C. law takes effect Jan. 1, 2010.