After 16 years, Pittsville fire chief and students see unsafe lighter idea signed into law

PITTSVILLE − Almost two decades ago, Fire Chief Jerry Minor's granddaughter brought him a Weekly Reader from school and showed him an article her second-grade class had read about novelty lighters.

"Grandpa, you ought to make a law," Kaitlyn Potts said.

Minor read the article, which was about children getting hurt while playing with toy-like lighters. The article came out in the fall of 2008. In the spring of that year, Potts' second-grade class had lost a classmate in a fire that was suspected to be started by a lighter.

Minor agreed with his granddaughter. He also decided the children in his granddaughter's second-grade class at Pittsville Elementary School, which had discussed the article Potts brought home, should help him.

Minor said he was familiar with the lawmaking process and believed it would be a fairly simple thing to get a law made in Wisconsin that would help protect children. He didn't know it would take almost 16 years filled with expectations and disappointments to get it done. It also took a lot of help from many people, including one person who many would consider an unlikely source of assistance.

On Friday, Minor saw his 16 years of work pay off when Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed the counterfeit and nuisance lighter bill into law.

"Unsafe lighters endanger our kids, families and communities, often creating dangerous and largely preventable situations for our fire departments, EMS providers and other first responders," Evers said before signing the bill into law. "This bipartisan legislation will help keep unsafe lighters off the shelves to help keep our kids safe across Wisconsin while improving and promoting fire safety, reducing fire play and helping prevent fires from starting in the first place."

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Evers told the Pittsville Elementary and High School students gathered to watch the signing that it doesn't normally take 16 years to make a law, but he was grateful to Minor for sticking with it.

Potts, now 23, said she remembers the day she showed Minor her Weekly Reader, a weekly educational magazine that was distributed to students in the classroom. He had picked her up from school that day, she said. Potts said she also remembers her classmate who died in a fire.

"It just took off from there," Potts said. "(Minor) had done a wonderful job with it."

Once Minor decided a law regarding lighters would be a good idea and something he could tackle, he contacted the school and asked if they'd like to work with him on the project. He began working with Londa Kuehn's second-grade class.

Kuehn said the idea for the law came from the children.

"I didn't push it," she told a Daily Tribune reporter in 2009. "It was the strong feeling of the kids in the classroom."

On Friday, Minor surprised Kuehn by having her family present for the signing.

"I am super ecstatic," Kuehn said. "This is something that started with a grassroots effort."

The original second-grade students were so passionate about the situation that they decided they had to do something, Kuehn said. That led to Potts talking to her grandfather.

Minor told Kuehn's class that he would help them get the law passed, but he needed something from them. Minor asked the children to write letters to state officials explaining why the toy-like lighters were dangerous and asking for a law to ban them.

The fire chief was surprised to learn that every student wrote to not one, but five, state officials, including former Gov. Jim Doyle and former state Reps. Amy Sue Vruwink, D-Milladore, and Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids. Minor mailed the letters to the appropriate offices.

Vruwink was impressed with the passion Minor and the children had for the issue, and decided to author an Assembly bill. Sadly, the legislative session ended that year before the bill made it to a vote.

The first failed attempt marked the beginning of a long road for Minor. He wouldn't give up on the children's request that he make a law to protect children from novelty lighters. He began collecting the toy-shaped lighters shortly after he read the Weekly Reader article.

At the start of each legislative session, he would talk to representatives and senators from central Wisconsin to see if they would introduce the bill again. He also gave regular updates to the students who asked him for help when they were in the second grade.

Minor made many trips to Madison with his lighter collection, many times taking some of the students with him to talk to committees about the dangers of the lighters. The children, who had figured out in second grade that the lighters were dangerous, also would talk to the committees. More than once, Minor thought the children's idea was close to becoming a law, only to have it fail to get a vote before the end of the legislative session.

In 2023, Minor got an unexpected phone call. A lawyer working with BIC, a company known for its lighters, was trying to get a law put in place in Wisconsin banning counterfeit and nuisance lighters. The attorney had been contacting some fire chiefs for support and was told about the central Wisconsin fire chief who had been working for years to get a lighter law passed.

Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, authored the Senate's version of the bill and provided a tremendous amount of help, Minor said. The lawyer-lobbyist hired by BIC was amazing, Minor said. Still, after so many disappointments, Minor didn't want to get his hopes up. Minor isn't sure why the previous bills didn't pass, but the new one didn't call them novelty lighters. Instead, it referred to counterfeit and nuisance lighters. It also refers to the standards set by ASTM International, an international standards group that develops technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, and services. In order to be legal in the state, lighters must meet ASTM International established safety guidelines, something few, if any, of the novelty lighters meet.

China, India and other countries are flooding the market in the United States with counterfeit lighters, Testin said. Not only does it take money away from the companies that legitimately make lighters, but the counterfeit ones often are of poor quality and don't meet safety standards, he said.

"I'm happy to be part of this bipartisan legislation and glad to be here for the governor's signing," Testin said.

Then, the last day of the Wisconsin Legislature's session came on March 12. Minor looked at the calendar and saw about two-thirds of the way down was the lighter bill. He sat watching WisconsinEye, the public access channel for the Wisconsin Legislature, that day, but he would get a call for service. His wife recorded the procedures and Minor learned, this time, the lighter bill passed.

"I sat there like, 'Holy crap, is this real?'" Minor said. "It took awhile for it to sink in. After fighting 16 years to get this through, we were getting so discouraged."

On Friday, Minor told the students that, if they have a good idea to help people or keep people safe, and other people think it's a good idea, hold onto it and don't let go. Eventually, with a lot of help, you can make it happen, he told the students.

Contact Karen Madden at 715-345-2245 or kmadden@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KMadden715, Instagram @kmadden715 or Facebook at www.facebook.com/karen.madden.33.