There are many fire-retardant paints on the market. These paints are sold for use in making combustible structural materials less inflammable. Tests conducted by the authors indicate a wide variation in the ability of these paints to offer protection against fire. Eleven different makes of fire-retardant paints were tested. Only one of these, sold under the trade name of Albi-R, withstood the 20-minute (1200-second) fire-retardant test developed by the Montana State College Engineering Experiment Station. As indicated by Figure 1, some brands of paints sold for the purpose failed under test, in as short a period as 38 seconds.