Would you let your child play with a lighter? Of course not. But that’s just part of the reason Oregon state fire officials are so concerned about novelty lighters that look like toys.

This is National Arson Awareness Week, and getting those lighters banned tops the list of concerns for the Oregon State Fire Marshal.

With the help of Jim Trett from the Keizer Fire Department we observed how these novelty lighters attract kids like moths to a flame.

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After taking the butane out of them, we gave the lighters to a group of kids. It didn’t take long for them to start pressing the buttons.

“What is it?” we asked one child.

“A slug bug, a slug bug,” came the response.

Others look like frogs, Gumby, Nemo, even lighters that appear to be toy cell phones. Fire officials say the danger is obvious.

“We run the real risk of kid being seriously hurt – if not killed – by these things, and that just scares me to death,” Trett told Newschannel-8.

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The lighters have been deadly in at least one case. Investigators blame a motorcycle-shaped lighter for sparking a fire that killed two children in Arkansas last year.

But hard numbers on how widespread these fires are tough to find. That’s because until a few months ago, there was no reliable way to track them.

“The national reporting system has now instated a category where you can report that it was a novelty or toy like lighter that was the cause of the fire, “ said Rich Hoover of the Oregon Fire Marshal’s Office.

Any number is too high for Oregon officials.

“What we would like to see is a national ban,” Hoover said.

Several cities and states have already passed their own ban on novelty lighters, but not Oregon.

The European Union recently banned the lighters, most of which are made in China.

But it’s not hard to find them in convenience shops all across Portland and Salem.

Those who sold me the lighters point out they don't sell to minors, and say parents need to monitor their kids.

Adults watching the kids in our demonstration had a different view.

“I don't see a purpose other than scaring adults to death,” said Paulette Ohmart, the grandmother of one of the children in the demonstration.

People need to be very aware and really think about bringing them into the house,” said Jim Trett of the Keizer Fire Department, “because if they see you with them, you are basically telling a child if I can play with it you can.”

(KGW Producer Rich Kurz contributed to this report)