The development of science and technology provides the availability of sophisticated products but concurrently, increases the use of combustible materials, in particular polymeric materials. The organic polymers are easily flammable and must be flame retarded to make them safer. To do so, flame retardants (FRs) are very often incorporated into them to limit their flammability. Other methods than FRs can be used: inherently flame retarded polymers (e.g. polyimide, PEEK and polybenzoxazoles) and chemically modified polymers (e.g. grafting of FR function and copolymerization with FR) can also be considered if the cost of the material is not an issue. The talk will review the different methods to make flame retardant polymers with the incorporation of FRs and by the application of FR coatings. The different mechanisms involving the gas phase (e.g. poisoning the flame by radical trapping) and the condensed phase (e.g. formation of a protective ceramic)1 will be fully commented. Biomass gives us the opportunity to make very diverse and powerful products such as transportation fuel, biogas, biomaterials or biochemicals. Among these products, bio-based polymers are becoming more and more attractive because they exhibit property profile at least as high as oil-based polymers and very often offer unique features never reached by the oil-based polymers. The second part of this talk is to provide an update on the design of fire-safe bio-based polymers associated to the opportunities brought by biomass (e.g. synthesis and preparation of bio-based flame-retardants). The talk will examine the flame retardancy of different types of bio-based polymers including polylactide (PLA), and stereocomplexes of PLA. It will also survey the design of flame-retardants from biomass with a main focus on the modifications of lignin.