Washington ? Starting today, air travelers must leave their cigarette lighters at home.

And unlike guns, knives and other dangerous items that can’t be carried on a plane but may be stowed in checked bags, lighters are banned from any portion of an aircraft.

“It’s been 3 1/2 years since 9-11 and they’ve finally figured it out,” said Mark Peterson, a visitor from South Dakota grabbing a smoke Wednesday outside Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The rule change probably will produce a large number of seizures, even though airports, airlines and the Transportation Security Administration have been telling travelers for the last 45 days about the impending ban.

“I’m sure we’ll have a bunch of them,” said George Doughty, executive director of Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania.

Lighters haven’t been permitted in checked bags for at least 30 years for fear they might start fires in cargo holds. Congress passed a bill last year adding them to the list of prohibited items in the cabin.

The genesis for the ban was Richard Reid, who tried unsuccessfully to light explosives hidden in his shoes on a trans-Atlantic flight in 2002. He used matches. The authors of the ban, Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota, and Ron Wyden, of Oregon, worried that a lighter might have worked.

The ban doesn’t include matches; passengers still may carry up to four books of safety matches onto a plane, but they can’t be the “strike anywhere” kind.