PITTSBURGH -- There's a local push for a ban on novelty lighters. Fire investigators in Pittsburgh said children might think the lighters are toys, play with them and accidentally start fires.

Each year, children start 35,000 fires. About 8,000 of those fires are at home and 15 to 20 percent of all fire deaths are children.

A blaze in Pittsburgh Larimer section last year was started by two 8-year-olds playing with matches. Five children died as a result.

Juveniles in Allegheny County started a total of 35 fires last year, police said.

"We're finding out in our investigations that there have been one, two, three, four incidents in the past with these kids playing with lighters and matches," said detective Michael Burns of the Pittsburgh Police Department.

And the circumstances are not always accidental.

"Some of the ones we had, they got mad at their brothers and sisters and set their beds on fire, set their toys on fire," said Burns. "Some of it is out of curiosity."

Now, police said, children have a new temptation to play with lighters. Novelty lighters that look like toys have killed dozens of children in other cities.

The city's Department of Public Safety wants to ban novelty lighters before local children are added to the fatality list. The department has the backing of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

"Something we're trying to stop on a federal level, to not sell items like this that look like a John Deer tractor," said Henry Glogowski of CPS.

Other states have successfully banned the lighters in major cities. Some states issued a statewide ban.

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