Cigarette Lighters

A fire possibly ignited by 4-year-old child playing with cigarette lighters in his bedroom early Thursday caused damage estimated at $100,000, authorities said. When investigators arrived, they found at least half a dozen fluid lighters on the floor and scattered about the house, Fire Capt. Stephen Shirley said. When they asked the 4-year-old if he had been playing with one of the lighters, the boy began to cry, he said.

Twin boys playing with a butane lighter started a fire Wednesday morning that caused about $100,000 damage to their home, the latest in a spate of recent fires involving children with lighters, matches or candles. "We've had about seven such fires in the last 10 days," said Capt. Dan Young of the Orange County Fire Authority. "Children and lighters are a dangerous mix. I don't know how many times I have said that and still, I don't seem to be getting that message through to people.

About 900,000 cigarette lighters should be returned to the stores where they were bought because they lack safety devices to keep children from igniting them, the government said Thursday. The Consumer Product Safety Commission also said it is recalling 26,000 nylon hammocks and 31,400 wooden bunk beds because children could become trapped in them and possibly strangle. Young's Assn.

A man accidentally shot a relative in the jaw Thursday when he pulled the trigger of what he thought was a cute, gun-shaped cigarette lighter. It wasn't. The man was rifling through an old suitcase full of personal papers in the family home on Valerio Street when he found the small .22-caliber derringer, Sgt. Gary Patton said. The shiny pistol was an older model gun, designed to fit into a belt buckle, Patton said.

It was only a cigarette lighter. But police say it looked like a real gun to the people James Anthony Zendejas was trying to rob. And it looked real to Ventura Officer Tim Turner. On Monday, police said it still looked just as real as it must have shortly before midnight Saturday when Turner fatally shot Zendejas as he allegedly pointed the fake gun at three Ventura Avenue residents. "It's not something you would mistake for a gun only in the dark shadows," Sgt. Ted Prell said.

Two boys playing with a cigarette lighter admitted that they accidentally touched off a Leona Valley brush fire that charred about 500 acres and caused an estimated $1 million in damage, investigators said Tuesday. The fire destroyed part of one house, 10 smaller buildings, 15 vehicles and an ostrich, but neighbors credit firefighters and each other with limiting the damage in this close-knit west Antelope Valley community, known for its horse ranches and cherry orchards.

These days, everyone knows the use of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine is rampant among youths. But sometimes it takes a teen-ager's death to alert people to another kind of drug problem: the abuse of common household chemicals called inhalants. In St. Petersburg, Fla., it took the death of Carla Hinkle, 16, who was buried in her "Lady Canes" softball uniform. In Chicago, it took the death of Christian Whittaker, 16, who, according to his friends, didn't use illegal drugs.

The disposable razor and indestructible ballpoint pens were nifty, but Bic's greatest engineering accomplishment may have been designing the nearest thing to a child-proof lighter. After five years of research and $10 million in development costs, the French-owned company says the lighter will hit stores next spring.

A 4-year-old boy who accidentally set his clothes on fire with a cigarette lighter remained in serious condition Monday in the burn unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange, a hospital official said. Joel Hoare Jr. was burned over 30% of his body, primarily on his neck, arms and chest, said hospital spokeswoman Fran Tardiff. The burns "aren't life-threatening injuries, and he's going to be OK," Tardiff said.