Firefighters said that artificial palm trees went up in flames “like 20-foot-tall cans of gasoline” near a 14th floor outside swimming pool at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Las Vegas, 25th July 2015. The fire broke the glass of one hotel room and black smoke spread inside the hotel. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured. The trees were made of non flame retardant plastic foam, within a hard plastic coat, around a steel core structure.
Because the trees were near an outside pool, they were not subject to fire safety regulations.Contact13 TV video online shows a comparison (NFPA 705 test) between non flame retardant and flame retardant fake palm plants (although the material in the pot was not FR and did burn), showing the non flame retarded plant resulted in “burning material on fire raining down, … the foam core acting like a torch” and “toxic fumes coming off … a hazard to anybody.”
Photo from Cosmopolitan Hotel fire video YouTube
“After The Cosmopolitan fire, Contact 13 does artificial tree fire test” D. Spears, ABC Contact TV News 25/9/2015