Kitchener firm's fireplace screens protect children from burns
First, Peter Nigh developed a fireplace screen to protect children from severe burns.
Then the Kitchener entrepreneur discovered that childhood burns caused by gas fireplaces are a big problem. Now he's trying to develop a market for his protective screens for what Nigh says has become “an epidemic of childhood burns.”
“I invented the product. Then I found out about the problem,” he says.
“I don't have a market because people don't know of the danger,” says Nigh, who co-owns W-D Metalcraft, which produces custom-made fireplace doors at its Bridge Street East location.
Gas fireplace glass doors can reach a temperature of more than 20°C in six minutes, hot enough to cause third-degree burns, says Safe Kids Canada, a injury prevention program run by The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. It takes 45 minutes for the fireplace to cool to a safe temperature once the fire is switched off.