A 3-year-old girl suffered minor burns to her ankle while playing with a lighter Friday in an incident that a Hall County fire official said could have been much worse.
The girl, who was not named by officials because of federal privacy laws, was taken to the Lanier Park campus of Northeast Georgia Medical Center for treatment of first- and second-degree burns, Hall County Fire Marshal Scott Cagle said.
Cagle said the girl found a lighter outside her Crow Road home at about 1:30 p.m. near a grill. The lighter did not have a child-resistant mechanism, he said.
The girl was wearing flame-resistant pajamas that stopped the fire from spreading, Cagle said.
"The fire and burns could have been much worse had she been wearing flannel or another material," Cagle said.
Cagle said the lighter should have been put away and not in the reach of the child.