Short answer: On December 19, 2024 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission told the public to stop using fire pits that burn rubbing alcohol or other liquid fuel poured into an open bowl, the small concrete and ceramic units sold as tabletop fire pits, fire pots and mini fireplaces. The CPSC called them "extremely dangerous" and said they "have been associated with two deaths and at least 60 injuries since 2019." Since then the agency has published recalls and warnings for specific brands, several of them because the seller has not agreed to a recall. If one of these products flame-jetted or exploded and burned you or someone in your family in Michigan, the injury is a product liability claim under Michigan law: the deadline is generally three years, the maker can be held responsible for a design that was not reasonably safe or for inadequate warnings, and a store or website that sold it answers for its own lack of reasonable care. Keep the fire pit, the fuel bottle and the receipt. Those three items usually decide the case.
If this happened to you, call (313) 800-0000 or use the form on this page. The consultation is free.
Who this page is for
We are talking to Michigan families who fit all three of these:
- You or a family member was injured by a tabletop fire pit, any brand, bought from any store or website.
- It exploded or flame-jetted during use or while being refueled.
- The result was any burn injury, from first-degree burns through skin grafts, scarring, inhalation burns, admission to a burn center, or a death in the family.
It does not matter whether your fire pit is on a recall list, whether you still have the box, or whether you were the person holding the fuel bottle. Those questions matter later, and we explain why below, but none of them is a reason to stay quiet.
What the CPSC has said about tabletop fire pits
The December 19, 2024 consumer alert is a category warning, not a single-brand recall. It covers products that require you to pour isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol or another liquid fuel into an open container and light it in place, whatever the brand. The CPSC's instructions were direct: "Consumers should immediately stop using and dispose of these products." And to the trade: "Sellers should stop selling these products." The agency said these products "violate the requirements in voluntary safety standard ASTM F3363-19," the industry standard written to prevent pool fires and flame jetting.
The CPSC describes the two ways people get hurt. The first is a pool fire: "Igniting a pool of alcohol or other liquid fuel in a fire pit's open container creates an uncontrollable pool fire," one that can suddenly produce larger, hotter flames that spread beyond the unit. The second is flame jetting. In the agency's words, "Flame jetting, a second hazard, can occur when refilling alcohol or other liquid-burning fire pits if any flame is present." The problem is that "A small flame in the fire pit can be hard to see and can ignite alcohol or other liquid fuel as it is poured," and in the Colsen recall the CPSC put it even more plainly: "Alcohol flames can be invisible and lead to flame jetting when refilling the fire pit reservoir." The agency's Rozato warning describes what happens next: the flame can "ignite the vapor inside a fuel container as the fuel is poured," "causing an explosion that propels flames and burning liquid onto the consumer or bystanders."
These fuels "can burn with flame temperatures over 1,600°F and can cause third degree burns in less than one second." That single sentence explains why so many of these injuries involve the face, hands, chest and arms, and why children and guests sitting across the table are hurt as often as the person holding the bottle.
Recalls and warnings the CPSC has published, by date
The table lists the actions the CPSC itself has published. The brand names, counts and quotations are the agency's. A fire pit that is not on this list is not safe by omission: the December 2024 alert covers every open-bowl alcohol fire pit, and a CPSC commissioner's statement on the warnings said the dangers "are not unique to a singular company or product."
| Date | CPSC action | What the CPSC reported |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 17, 2024 | Colsen fire pits recalled (recall 25-015) | About 89,500 units sold online 2020 to 2024. "CPSC has received 31 reports of flame jetting and flames escaping from the concrete container," "resulting in 19 burn injuries." "Two incidents resulted in third degree burns to more than 40% of victims' bodies." Remedy: dispose. |
| Dec. 19, 2024 | FLIKRFIRE tabletop fireplaces warning (warning 25-073) | "Flame jetting contributed to the June 2024 death of an elderly couple." "In at least three other incidents, FLIKRFIRE use has resulted in third or fourth degree burns." Both the manufacturer and the prior manufacturer are "no longer in business"; no recall remedy. |
| Dec. 19, 2024 | Category-wide consumer alert (warning 25-074) | All alcohol or liquid-burning open-bowl fire pits: "associated with two deaths and at least 60 injuries since 2019." "Consumers should immediately stop using and dispose of these products." |
| Sept. 18, 2025 | Five Below tabletop fire pits recalled (recall 25-467) | About 66,000 units sold 2024 to 2025 for $2.50 to $5. "Alcohol fuel can splash or leak out of the fire pit reservoir during use and/or ignition, causing a flash fire." "Five Below has received one report of flames escaping from a tabletop firepit. No injuries have been reported." Remedy: refund. |
| Apr. 2, 2026 | Rozato tabletop fire pits warning (warning 26-364) | "These fire pits have been associated with one death and multiple burn injuries." "Rozato, the retailer of Rozato Tabletop Fire Pits, has not agreed to a recall." Sold online 2022 to present for about $15 to $70. |
| May 7, 2026 | Northlight bio ethanol tabletop fireplaces warning (warning 26-473) | Seven item numbers sold online through national retail websites for about $35 to $90. "Gordon Companies Inc., the retailer of Northlight Bio Ethanol Portable Tabletop Fireplaces, has not agreed to a recall." "CPSC urges consumers to stop using the tabletop fireplaces immediately and dispose of them." |
| July 16, 2026 | Houswise tabletop fire pits warning (warning 26-615) | "At least 53,500" units sold online since March 2023. "CPSC is aware of more than two dozen reports of flame-jetting," "resulting in seven injuries, including third-degree burns." The manufacturer "has not agreed to recall these products or offer a remedy to consumers." |
| Aug. 13, 2026 | Brookstone-branded tabletop fire pits recalled (recall 26-687) | About 48,700 units sold at department and discount stores 2023 to 2024 for $20 to $25. "Two reports of flame jetting and flames escaping from the concrete container," "resulting in two injuries including second-degree and third-degree burns." Remedy: refund. |
Two patterns in that table matter for a Michigan claim. First, the sellers that have not agreed to a recall are named by the CPSC, and declining a recall after the agency has published injury reports is the kind of fact that matters in a case. Second, several of the companies are small importers, online storefronts or businesses that have already closed. Who actually stands behind the product, and whether any insurance does, has to be worked out early. More on that below.
The fuel is part of the story too. Since July 2023 federal rules have required flame mitigation devices, such as flame arrestors, on portable fuel containers, including containers sold pre-filled with liquid fireplace fuel. The CPSC explained the reason when it adopted the rule: "Flame mitigation devices, such as flame arrestors, protect against flame jetting and container rupturing." A squeeze bottle of alcohol or bioethanol sold for a tabletop fire pit without one is a second product in the same accident. Keep it.
What to do if a tabletop fire pit burned you or a family member
- Get the burn treated, and keep the records. Second- and third-degree burns, burns to the face or hands, and any inhalation injury belong at a burn center. Follow-up matters: scar maturation, contracture and grafting decisions play out over months, and the medical record is what later proves the injury. Photograph the burns at every stage, with dates.
- Stop using the fire pit, but do not throw it away. The CPSC's advice to an uninjured owner is to dispose of the unit. If someone was hurt, the fire pit, the fuel bottle and its cap, the packaging, the instructions and any lighter are evidence. Do not clean them. Store them somewhere cool and away from any flame, ideally in a sealed bag or box, and tell everyone in the house not to touch them.
- Write down what happened while it is fresh. Who was at the table and where they sat, how long the unit had been burning, whether the flame looked out, how long you waited, which fuel was used, how it was poured, and what happened in the first seconds. Ask each witness to write their own version.
- Find the purchase record. Online order history, the store receipt, the credit card statement, or the gift-giver's order. The record identifies the seller, the exact model and the sale date, all of which decide who can be held responsible and which recall notice applies.
- Report it to the CPSC at SaferProducts.gov. Your report becomes part of the public record the agency uses to decide on recalls, and it helps the next family. It is separate from any legal claim; keep it factual and brief.
- Be careful with the seller's paperwork. Recall emails and customer service offers can include a refund request form or a release. A refund of a $25 purchase does not settle a burn injury, and a signed release can. Have anything you are asked to sign read first.
- Know the clock. Michigan generally allows three years from the injury to file a product liability action. Evidence and witnesses do not keep that long.
How Michigan law treats a fire pit injury
Michigan's product liability rules sit in the Revised Judicature Act. The statutes below are linked to the Michigan Legislature's official text.
It is a product liability action. Under MCL 600.2945, a "product liability action" is one brought "for the death of a person or for injury to a person or damage to property caused by or resulting from the production of a product," and "production" is defined to include design, manufacture, formulation, testing, "warning, instructing, marketing, selling, advertising, packaging, or labeling." A claim that the fire pit was badly designed, a claim that the warnings were inadequate, and a claim about how it was marketed all fall under the same rules.
The defect standard. Under MCL 600.2946(2), the injured person has to show the product "was not reasonably safe at the time the specific unit of the product left the control of the manufacturer or seller," and that "a practical and technically feasible alternative production practice was available that would have prevented the harm without significantly impairing the usefulness or desirability of the product to users and without creating equal or greater risk of harm to others." In a tabletop fire pit case the alternatives are not exotic. Sealed fuel cans, non-refillable cartridges, snuffer lids and fuel bottles with flame arrestors are not new technology, and the voluntary standard the CPSC cites, ASTM F3363, dates to 2019.
Standards and the presumption. Compliance with a governmental safety standard creates a rebuttable presumption of no liability under MCL 600.2946(4). ASTM F3363 is a voluntary industry standard, not a government one, so compliance with it is admissible evidence under subsection (1) but carries no presumption. The CPSC has said the open-bowl products on the market violate that standard anyway.
Warnings. MCL 600.2948 sets two limits that come up in every one of these cases. There is no duty to warn of a risk that "is or should be obvious to a reasonably prudent product user," and the plaintiff must prove the manufacturer "knew or should have known about the risk of harm based on the scientific, technical, or medical information reasonably available at the time." Defendants argue that pouring fuel onto fire is an obvious danger. The response is that the specific hazard, an invisible flame igniting the vapor inside a bottle and jetting several feet across a table, is not what ordinary buyers understand, and that the manufacturers knew it: it is the hazard the industry standard was written to prevent in 2019, and one the CPSC has described publicly since 2023. The statute also preserves a maker's or seller's "duty to use reasonable care in relation to a product after the product has left the manufacturer's or seller's control," which is where post-sale notice and recall conduct come in.
Misuse and alteration. Under MCL 600.2947, a manufacturer or seller is not liable for harm caused by misuse or alteration of the product "unless the misuse was reasonably foreseeable," and the statute makes those questions "legal issues to be resolved by the court." Refilling a fire pit is not a strange use of a refillable fire pit; it is the use the product is sold for. Whether refilling a unit that looked extinguished is foreseeable is the central fight in these cases, and in Michigan the judge decides it.
Stores and websites that did not make the product. Michigan limits the liability of a non-manufacturing seller. Under MCL 600.2947(6), a seller other than the manufacturer is liable only if it "failed to exercise reasonable care, including breach of any implied warranty, with respect to the product and that failure was a proximate cause of the person's injuries," or if it made an express warranty the product failed to meet. A retailer that kept selling an open-bowl alcohol fire pit after the CPSC's December 2024 alert, or that sent no notice to buyers after a recall, has a reasonable-care problem of its own. Whether an online marketplace that lists third-party sellers is itself a "seller" under this statute has not been decided by a Michigan appellate court, so those claims are built on the marketplace's own conduct.
Comparative fault. Michigan reduces damages by the injured person's share of fault under MCL 600.2959, and if that share is greater than everyone else's combined, noneconomic damages are not awarded at all. Expect the defense to argue that the person pouring was more than half at fault. Expect the response to be the CPSC's own language about flames that are "hard to see," and the absence of any warning that said so.
Who pays what share. Liability in Michigan injury cases is several, not joint, under MCL 600.2956 and MCL 600.6304: each defendant pays its own percentage, and fault can be assigned to a company that is not in the case, including an overseas factory that was never served. That is why the importer, the brand owner, the retailer and the fuel seller all need to be identified early, and why a case that names only a dissolved LLC can be worth nothing.
Damages, and the cap. A product liability claim can recover medical expenses, lost earnings and other economic losses, and noneconomic damages for pain, suffering, scarring and disfigurement. Michigan caps noneconomic damages in product liability cases under MCL 600.2946a. The cap is adjusted every year; the Michigan Department of Treasury set the 2026 limit at $596,400, or $1,065,000 where the defect caused death or permanent loss of a vital bodily function. The jury is not told about the cap. The cap and most of the statutory defenses do not apply if the court finds under MCL 600.2949a that the defendant "had actual knowledge that the product was defective" with "a substantial likelihood that the defect would cause the injury" and "willfully disregarded that knowledge." A seller that kept shipping units after receiving injury reports is the kind of fact pattern that provision is aimed at.
When someone dies. A death claim is brought by the personal representative of the estate under MCL 600.2922, for medical and funeral expenses, the conscious pain and suffering before death, and the family's loss of financial support, society and companionship. Our wrongful death page explains how those claims are distributed.
The deadline. The limitations period for a product liability action is three years under MCL 600.5805(12). A death claim runs three years from the death, with a limited extension for the estate's representative under MCL 600.5852. Three years sounds generous until the seller's storefront disappears, the marketplace deletes the listing and the fuel bottle goes out with the trash.
Common questions
My fire pit is not on the CPSC recall list. Do I still have a claim? Possibly. The CPSC's December 2024 alert covers every fire pit that burns alcohol or other liquid fuel poured into an open bowl, by design and regardless of brand, and a CPSC commissioner's statement on the warnings said the dangers "are not unique to a singular company or product." A recall helps prove notice, but a claim under MCL 600.2946 is about whether the product was reasonably safe, not whether it was recalled.
I was the one pouring the fuel. Can I still bring a claim? Yes. Refilling is the intended use of a refillable fire pit, and the CPSC's own publications say the flame "can be hard to see" and that alcohol flames "can be invisible." Michigan's misuse defense applies only to misuse that was not reasonably foreseeable, and the judge decides that question. Your share of fault, if any, reduces the recovery under MCL 600.2959 rather than ending it, unless it exceeds everyone else's combined.
The seller emailed a recall notice and offered a refund. Should I accept it? Taking a refund for the purchase price does not, by itself, give up an injury claim, but read what you are asked to sign. Some refund forms include release language, and anything that mentions "claims," "release" or "settlement" should be reviewed before you sign it. Keep the email and the notice; they show what the seller knew and when.
The company that made it is overseas or out of business. Who pays? This is the hard question in these cases, and the answer depends on the chain of sale. The importer that brought the units into the country, the brand owner, the retailer that sold it, and the company that sold the fuel bottle each have their own responsibility under MCL 600.2947, and each may carry insurance. Under Michigan's several-liability rules, fault assigned to an unreachable factory is not collected from anyone else, which is why identifying every company in the chain early is the first job.
I bought it on Amazon or Walmart.com from a third-party seller. Does that change anything? It changes who the defendants are. The marketplace, the storefront seller, the importer and the manufacturer may all be different companies, and your order history is the record that sorts them out. No Michigan appellate court has decided whether a marketplace is a "seller" of third-party goods under MCL 600.2945, so those claims focus on what the marketplace itself did: what it knew, what safety notices it sent, and whether it kept the listing live.
What should I do with the fire pit and the fuel bottle? Do not use them, do not clean them, and do not throw them away. Store them sealed, cool and away from any flame, and photograph them from every side, including the labels and any warning text. The condition of the burner, the fuel residue and the bottle's spout are the physical evidence of what happened.
How long do I have to file in Michigan? Generally three years from the injury under MCL 600.5805(12), and three years from a death under the wrongful death rules, with a limited extension for the estate's personal representative. Do not wait: evidence, sellers and listings disappear faster than the deadline.
Talk to a Michigan burn injury lawyer about a tabletop fire pit explosion
A free consultation can tell you which companies stand behind the fire pit you bought, which CPSC notice applies to it, what the fuel bottle adds, and what the deadline is. Read more about our product liability and burn injury practices, how Michigan handles scarring and disfigurement, the Detroit product liability framework in depth, and burn injury claims in Michigan.
Call (313) 800-0000 or request a free consultation. Koussan Law has offices in Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Marquette, and we work in English, Spanish and Arabic.
Sources
- CPSC, Consumer Alert: Stop Using Alcohol or Other Liquid-Burning Fire Pits That Violate Voluntary Standards (warning 25-074, Dec. 19, 2024): cpsc.gov
- CPSC, Colsen fire pit recall 25-015 (Oct. 17, 2024); FLIKRFIRE warning 25-073 (Dec. 19, 2024); Five Below recall 25-467 (Sept. 18, 2025); Rozato warning 26-364 (Apr. 2, 2026); Northlight warning 26-473 (May 7, 2026); Houswise warning 26-615 (July 16, 2026); Brookstone-branded recall 26-687 (Aug. 13, 2026): linked in the table above.
- CPSC, statement of Commissioner Trumka on the fire pit warnings (Dec. 20, 2024): cpsc.gov PDF
- CPSC, flame mitigation devices required on portable fuel containers (Jan. 17, 2023): cpsc.gov
- Michigan Department of Treasury, 2026 limitation on noneconomic damages and product liability determination (Jan. 30, 2026): michigan.gov PDF
- ASTM F3363-25, Standard Specification for Unvented Liquid/Gel Fuel-Burning Portable Devices: astm.org
Important: This is not legal advice
This article is general information about Michigan personal injury law. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for consultation with a licensed Michigan attorney about your specific situation. The laws, deadlines, procedures, and frameworks here are general guidelines that may or may not apply to your case.
Every personal injury case turns on its own unique facts. The timing, the parties, the evidence, the jurisdiction, the insurance available, and dozens of other variables can change the legal analysis. Do not rely on anything written on this website to make decisions about your case.
If you have been injured in Michigan, the only responsible step is to speak with a licensed Michigan attorney about your specific facts. Call Koussan Law at (313) 800-0000 for a free consultation, or contact a different Michigan personal injury attorney of your choosing.
Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship with Koussan Law. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
