Fuel fires can be horrific incidents, but there’s something humorous about the lengths to which some people will go when working with fuel. Take one Daytona Beach, Fla., man who rigged up a plastic gas can to be his car’s fuel tank – all he did was set up the gas can under the hood, right next to the hot engine. It’s stranger than fiction. Then there is the old story about cell phones and gas pump fires. Do gas stations have good reason to post warning signs on the pump, or is the static electricity danger cell phones allegedly pose to refueling motorists merely an urban legend.
Cell phone lies burning up the Internets
Urban legends are the business of Snopes.com, and they’ve trained their laser-guided truthiness on cellular phones and fuel pump fires. Mobile phone manuals may have some token verbiage on the subject, but for the most part, Snopes has found that there’s no hard science behind the idea that cellular signals cause fuel pump fires. Certain, it may sound feasible – electromagnetic waves producing a static charge that ignites the gasoline vapor – but there are simply no cases to back it up. While there may be some validity to not using cell phones around hospital or airliner equipment, there is no smoke and hence no fire when it comes to the cell phone gasoline pump fire scenario. As far as Snopes.com can tell, rumors of explosions in China and Indonesia stemmed from old Internet yarns dating back to 1999, instead of actual events. Years later, “Mythbusters” burned the whole story to the ground.
Shell Oil made it seem official
In June 2002, a warning was issued via the Internet by what was supposedly the Shell Oil Company. Three cases of cell phones causing gas pump fires were accounted in some detail. And all it would take to become yet an additional statistic would be for a motorist’s phone to simply ring in the presence of gasoline fumes. While cell and auto batteries both have the save voltage rating, vehicle batteries provide significantly more current. A scary story about mobile phones generating “more than 100 volts” in brief spurts, which would be potentially dangerous, was a falsehood likely planted by the phone companies when cellular technology was new.
Shell Oil denied sending such a fake message.
Protection from a non-threat
Even if a fuel station tank does go up – it has happened – cell phones can’t be connected. Fire up the talk box and get happy, just do not become distracted from your mission of getting gas in the tank, rather than on your trousers.
Daytona Beach News-Journal
news-journalonline.com/breakingnews/2010/08/manu-using-gas-can-as-fuel-tank-suffers-burns.html
Snopes
snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp
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