Almost 500,000 bottles and jugs of NAPAfire and FIREGEL pourable gel fuel have been recalled by Napa Home & Garden due to a fire and burn hazard. The portable gel fuel can ignite unexpectedly and splatter onto people nearby when it is poured into a fireboat that is still burning.
Napa has received 37 reports of incidents, which includes 23 burn injuries.
Consumers can return the bottles or jugs where they were purchased to receive a full refund. Additional information can be found on the Napa website.
Apparently Napa is working on a retrofit for their fireboats.
As an aside, I have sympathy for those injured and I wish them a speedy recovery. But I find it interesting that the gel fuel would be recalled when the only reason the fuel posed a hazard was when consumers poured it on an already lit fire. Maybe the substance is a little harder to control than, say, lighter fluid, but it seems to me that pouring any flammable substance — particularly a fluid or gel — onto a lit fire is just asking for trouble.
Let’s hope Napa gets this issue sorted out and there are no more injuries.
