Local Legislators Call on Consumer Product Safety to Pull All Gel Candles

Federal and state representatives joined the chorus this week of people calling for a recall of the type of products that over Memorial Day weekend. The 14-year old remains at Stony Brook University Medical Center in critical condition.

After Hubbard's story hit the national media last week, appearing in the New York Times and on Good Morning America, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Tim Bishop, D-Southampton, filed a letter with the Consumer Product Safety Commission this week to, "ask that all forms of liquid firepot fuels be removed from the marketplace to prevent any further injuries to consumers."

State Sen. Ken LaValle, R-Port Jefferson, and Assemblyman Dan Losquadro, R-Shoreham, also joined Bishop and Gillibrand in their calls.

The manufacturer of the product that burned Hubbard on May 28, Napa Home and Garden, of the fire gel.

Jerry and KC Cunningham, owners of Napa Home and Garden, said in a statement on Monday, "we are seeing what else we can do to make sure our products are safe and people know how to use them safely."

In their letter, Gillibrand and Bishop took particular issue with the use of the word "safe" on the product's label. The word references the product's environmental safety, a label the legislators called "misleading."

The CPSC, a federal regulatory agency, initiated an investigation into the safety of FireGel candles last week, warning that, "consumers should be aware of the burn and poisoning hazards that can occur from using illuminating fuels in firepots, tiki torches, and other consumer products." 

Similar products to Napa Home and Garden's - which has reportedly injured eight people in the past three months - remain on the shelves.

“We want these products off the market so this never happens to anyone else,” said Fran Reyer-Johnson, Hubbard's aunt.

Reyer-Johnson wrote in an online journal on Friday that her nephew is taking "small baby steps back to us."