Animated children's lamps made in China are being pulled off the shelves of Hart stores in five provinces Monday after the New Brunswick fire marshal's office found the product is not approved for sale in Canada.

The lamp was brought to the attention of Shawn Paulsen, New Brunswick's chief electrical inspector, after a fire broke out in the bedroom of a young girl in Tracadie-Sheila recently.

This children's lamp designed as an animated aquarium has been removed from store shelves in New Brunswick.
(CBC)

Philippe Doiron responded to the calls of his girlfriend's daughter Emilie Basque to find flames reaching from where the animated aquarium sat on a bookshelf to the ceiling. The lamp had been on for about two hours.

Doiron suffered second-degree burns putting out the flames with his bare hands, and now Emilie refuses to go into her room alone.

There are 82 Hart stores in Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The lamp was purchased at a store in Quebec, and the company said it has also sold 8,000 of the lamps at its outlets.

It hasn't yet been determined if the fire was caused by the lamp, said Paulsen. But the Canadian Standards Association sticker on the product's box may not have been authorized.

An investigation into the box's sticker validity is still being conducted, but the lamp itself did not have any certified mark on it, he said, and New Brunswick law says all products must be certified.

Philippe Doiron suffered second-degree burns after putting out a fire in his daughter's bedroom.
(CBC)

"We have issued an order to remove the product from shelves and not to sell them in the province."

Counterfeit certification an increasing problem 

Certified products have a number marked on the box and a sticker on each product, and also contain a set of safety instructions, Paulsen said.

"There is an issue now with a lot of items being counterfeit, especially with a lot of electrical products, so that's one of our concerns," he said.

The fire marshal's office does product checks on occasion, Paulsen said, but often these issues are not brought to his attention until after an incident like Doiron's.

The fire marshal's office is investigating if the product has been sold at any other retail outlets in New Brunswick, Paulsen said, and the other provinces will also be informed of the incident.