Lifetap and Righteous Fire

If I have lifetap linked to righteous fire then take out the righteous fire gem it leaves the burning debuff up until I change zones.

This is standard behavior for RF even without the Lifetap support: the gem merely gives you a spell that adds the buff; once the buff is on you, you don't need the gem in to keep it up.

If you were looking for a way to "turn it off," any flask that removes burning on use will remove the Righteous Fire buff as well. (this is actually a popular tactic to use with the Soul of Arakaali's "Increased recovery rate of life and energy shield if you recently stopped taking damage over time," because you can use a flask to stop RF, proc that, and then immediately turn RF back on to enjoy 4 seconds of RF + faster recovery)