Cell Phones and Gas Station Fires – Fact or Fiction?
Tonight I went to fill up a car and a woman was speaking on her cell phone while filling up her car. Ever since I saw news footage of a gas station supposedly blowing up due to a cell phone creating enough static electricity to ignite the gas, I’ve been fairly paranoid of people talking on cell phones at gas stations. Read more about this potentially disastrous problem by clicking on the title.
I asked the woman to turn hers off until she was done gassing up, and she was actually thankful for the heads up. However, when I told the station attendant there should be a sign, he was animated and said that he “was trained, and knew what I was saying was true,” but people inevitably became hostile and angry when confronted about turning off their phones so that everyone didn’t become a weenie roast.
I realize there are many rumors out there, and there are many who will not believe such a thing could be true. After checking out some angles, I must reiterate TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES WHEN GASSING UP and insist that others do the same! In fact, find out how you can discharge any static electricity your own body may have before you start refueling. I have some links here so you can decide for yourself.
From an API article, we find:
As National Fire Prevention Week begins October 5, the American Petroleum Institute and the Petroleum Equipment Institute are reminding motorists to avoid potential problems with static electricity at the gas pump by staying outside the vehicle during refueling, and to follow all safe refueling practices during their weekly routine gasoline tank fill-up.Static electricity-caused fires at the pump are extremely rare. In fact, Americans pump gasoline into their cars an estimated 11 to 12 billion times a year, generally without incident. But static electricity may build up when a motorist re-enters the vehicle during fueling and slides across the seat. When the motorist returns to the nozzle, the static may discharge at the fill point, potentially igniting gasoline vapors and causing a flash or a small sustained fire. Potential problems with static electricity at the pump may occur any time of year, but most typically incidents have occurred when the air is cool and dry.
If a motorist experiences a fire when refueling, leave the nozzle in the fill pipe of the vehicle and back away. Leaving the nozzle in the vehicle will prevent any fire from becoming much more dangerous. Notify the station attendant immediately to shut off all dispensing devices and pumps. If the facility is unattended, use the emergency shutdown button to shut off the pump and use the emergency intercom to summon help.
If you must re-enter your vehicle during refueling, be sure to discharge any static that may have built up before reaching for the nozzle. Static may be safely discharged by touching a metal part of the vehicle, such as the vehicle door, or some other metal surface, away from the nozzle, with a bare hand.
From the WBAL channel we find it’s very, very true we need to be aware when refueling, since it is, in fact, a volatile liquid. From the story with a headline that reads:"The Risk Is Remote -- But It's Still Dangerous"
The National Fire Protection Association says you should:Pay attention to what you're doing. Pumping gas is the transfer of a hazardous substance; don't engage in other activities.
Avoid holding cell phones, laptop computers or portable radios while refueling.
To avoid spills, do not top off or overfill your vehicle.
After pumping gas, leave the nozzle in the tank opening for a few seconds to avoid drips.
If a fire starts, don't remove the nozzle or try to stop the flow of gasoline. Just leave the area and call for help.
From Urban Legends, we find this article that it seems to be the exiting and re-entering of the vehicle during refueling that creates the static electricity that is such a menace. Also from Urban Legends, the original 1999 story where they tried to set it all straight, and in fact it seems like the cell phone people and the gasoline station people are in agreement to STOP USING YOUR CELL PHONE AT GAS STATIONS. From Geek.com we found a 1999 article that pretty much says the same thing. And from 2004, this story from Consumer Affairs seems to confirm that at least one fire has been associated with using a cell phone.
So basically I found that many believe erroneously there are no incidents directly attributed to cell phone X creating fire Y, there are many reports of static electricity causing gasoline explosions, and it is a fact that cell phones can generate static electricity. This is a public health issue, and could affect any of us at any time. We need signs up in every gas station warning us to GET OFF THE PHONE FOR THE TWO MINUTES IT TAKES TO GAS UP.
How Cell Phones Have Caused Fires
Yes, I agree it's fairly rare, but it seems that if they ring when you're filling up, that's the moment of maximum danger. The last link in the story provides this quote:
In New Paltz, NY, police say a student was burned when his cell phone started a fire at a Mobil station. Chief Patrick Koch of the New Paltz Fire Dept. said the 21-year-old student was filling up his car when his phone rang.When he answered the phone, a large flash occurred at the nozzle of the pump and started the fire. Fortunately, an employee quickly cut the gas supply, preventing the blaze from getting out of control.
Chief Koch said he no longer has any doubt that cell phones can ignite gas fumes: "I'm positive today, that as of last night, 9:30 last night, I'm positive that a cell phone can ignite."
And in Texas two weeks ago, three oil workers were seriously injured in a flash fire at an oil well site. A spokesman for the Gregg County Sheriff's Office said a cell phone was suspected of causing the fire. The three workers were taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital Burn Center in Dallas.
Capt. Ken Hartley of the Gregg County Sheriff's Office said that investigators believe that a cell phone sparked the blaze, either by ringing or by causing a static electricity discharge when the ringing phone was touched by one of the workers.
So regardless of how rare the occurrence, please spread the word that WE NEED TO GET OFF OUR CELLPHONES FOR TWO MINUTES WHILE GASSING UP. And NOT get back on them until we're done and back inside our cars.
"If not here, where? If not now, when?"
Cell Phones Cleared in Gas Fires
Cell Phones Cleared in Gas Fires
By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.Com
May 26, 2006
Some say reports of cell phones starting gasoline fires are just an urban myth. They may be right.
Firefighters originally blamed a May 2004 gas pump fire in New Paltz, N.Y., on a cell phone -- the first such case.
However, after talking to witnesses, Patrick Koch, New Paltz's assistant fire chief, ruled out the cell phone as a possible cause but said, "It is unknown what started the fire."
Koch said it is believed that if a cell phone were to ignite a fire it would only occur when the cell phone is answered. The man at the pump, Mathew Erhorn, originally said the flash of fire occurred when he answered his phone.
However, witnesses came forward later and said Erhorn had been on the phone prior to the accident, Koch said.
The fire was immediately suffocated by the station's emergency fire suppression system and Erhorn suffered only minor burns.
At the time, Koch said left little doubt the cell phone was to blame.
"I'm positive a cell phone can ignite. That's why motorists are told 'don't use their cell phones when they're pumping gas.' Really, it's deadly," he said then.
Now?
"If they can't start a fire, why are there 'do not use cell phone' signs on the pump?" he said. "No one could explain it to me then and no one can explain it to me now," Koch told ConsumerAffairs.Com,
In another much-noted May 2004 fire, three oil well workers in Gregg County, Texas, were seriously injured when flames surrounded them soon after a cell phone rang. The accident occurred after one of the workers went to answer the phone which was resting on the tailgate of a truck.
Gregg County fire marshal, Chad Walls, said he hasn't ruled out the cell phone because he has no idea what ignited the fumes.
"It could have been the static shock created when he touched the truck," Walls said.
"MythBusters," a Discovery Channel show, recently broadcast an episode on whether a cell phone could ignite a fire at the gas pump. The show, like Koch, found it unlikely.
"While there has never been a confirmed incident of a refueling fire caused by using a cell phone during refueling, it's best to give your full attention to the fueling process and minimize distractions like cell phones can cause," said Prentiss Searles, spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute.
Koch did say that under "million to one" conditions, a cell phone could ignite a fire. "You have to create the scene just right. You have to have the right humidity. You have to have the right temperature. You have to have the right air pressure."
Koch doesn't see the cell phone as large a threat as static electricity.
Koch and other fire officials suggest that before touching the handle of a pump, consumers should discharge themselves on a piece of metal such as the car door or handle. He also warned that in fall through spring people carry more static because of climates and sweaters and other winter clothing.
Cell Phones
At the pump? Well I don't think I want some person making that choice for me. I say " Just stay off the phone until your done getting gas and back on the street PLEASE" Common Curtesy.
And DoggyDaddy California has to many rules, laws, and ect. ect. ect.
I use to live there and now I live in a backwoods country called Oregon. Some things are nice here, but they hate Californians. I wonder if Montanna is any better? Sorry got side-tract.
Cell phones at the pump
Well since my remarks were not well received, I have been doing a bit more research. My gut feeling is if cell phone fires are a problems, why aren't there experiments to demonstrate it? As I said before, it's easy to slap warnings on everything, but what's really going on?
Two sources worth looking at:
The Petroleum Equipment Institute has a lot of interesting information about static electrical discharge
PEI has investigated hundreds of refueling fires that appear to be the result of static electrical discharge. None of these incidents were related to a cell phone.
The Petroleum Equipment Institute began investigating mysterious refueling fires in the mid-Nineties. We learned that static electricity– the same thing that shocks you after dragging your feet across the carpet– can ignite gasoline vapors at the pump.
There was also the episode on the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" in which they took extraodinary measures to set a fire with a cell phone (Episode 14, June 8, 2004). This included damaging the wiring and sealing the phone in an enclosure with a very high concentration of vapor. The only way an explosion did occur is by inducing a spark from rubbing nylon material together to build static electricity. This is the same situation caused by getting in and out of your car while refueling.
So to me the real common courtesy is to stay outside your car while pumping gas, and if you must climb back inside, be sure to ground yourself on the car chassis before grabbing the pump handle. This will help avoid actual well documented occurances of gasoline fires.
Sorry, but to me this is a not a cause for alarm. The real cause for alarm is the shock experienced when I look at the total of my gasoline purchase!
My experience tells me you may have a point
For whatever reason I seem to be extra static-y in my Ford Taurus. Don't know if it's my 'fault' or the cars, but for whatever reason I get one hell of shock every single time I get out of it. I even got shocked through an apple this morning (tried to close the door with an apple, natch). Even without the research this seems intuitively more of a threat than the normal cell phone poses. If my cell phone arced like that, I'd throw it away. I guess we should ground on our cars and not talk on the cell phone if we want to be totally safe. But if that is the case what the heck are we doing driving on the streets of America, right... ;-)
Cellphones
Cellphones
Most of the advice given on Cellphones and Ignition is both correct (according to the laws of Physics), but out of context.
1 Radiation/Static danger is minimal, but in many countries it is illegal to use a radio on a Filling Station forecourt.
2 In the Electrical regulations of most countries, it is illegal to use non intrisically safe radios or other electrical equipment, in a zone zero hazardous area
(zone zero = where hydrocarbon vapour is present during normal operation)
i.e. The area just beyond the filler cap (where you are displacing the fuel/vapour mix already in the nearly empty tank, out, at around waist height), this is a temporary but real industrial hazard.
3 Ignition is not usually caused by the RF signal, but by components in the cellphone hot enough to ignite the vapour, or by the ringer.
4 If your radio device (cellphone) is not approved for use in a flammable athmosphere - then just try proving you didn't cause the incident.
Thanks
for contributing to this (IMHO) valuable commentary on the hazards of spontaneous combustion between flammable liquids and electric sparks. If we don't start living smart, we may not be living at all!
"If not here, where? If not now, when?"
Cell Phones and Gas Station Fires – Fact or Fiction?
Robert, the API article that you quote was all good info from PEI (Petroleum Equipment Institute) I see nothing in the article about cell phones. At the PEI website http://pei.org/static/index.htm I found this, “Not Cell Phones PEI has investigated hundreds of refueling fires and flare-ups. We have not documented one single incident that was caused by a cellular telephoneâ€.
The story from Consumer Affairs is not up to date. From a PEI News Letter http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1139343/posts and Firehouse.com http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=46&id=305... we see that the New Paltz Fire Chief had the following to say. “We (PEI) talked with the New Paltz Fire Chief this week about the accident and he offered two new pieces of information about the fire that were discovered after a more extensive investigation of the scene and another interview with the victim. First, although the motorist said that he chocked the nozzle open with his gas cap (latch-open devices are not allowed at the station in New Paltz), no gas cap was found at the scene. However, a full Bic lighter was discovered two feet from where the car was fueled. Furthermore, the motorist later stated that he reentered his 1994 Isuzu Rodeo during the refueling process to look at his odometer and then slid out of the vehicle to complete the dispensing process immediately prior to answering his cell phone. In light of this new information, the New Paltz Fire Chief issued the following statement about the fireâ€: "Upon further investigation of the accident scene and another discussion with the victim of the May 13 gasoline station fire in New Paltz, I have concluded the source of ignition was from some source other than the cell phone the motorist was carrying. Although we will probably never know for sure, the source of ignition was most likely static discharge from the motorist himself to the nozzle dispensing the gasoline."
There was another false accusation in Texas. A man was working on an oil platform, his phone rang and a fire started, the media ran with it, never checking to see what came of the investigation. The United States Department of the Interior has jurisdiction where the platform was so they did an investigation and the oil company did an independent investigation also. “As part of the lessee’s investigation of this fire, they sent the hand held cellular phone involved in the flash fire to an independent third party testing laboratory. At the laboratory, the cellular phone and an identical model phone were tested in an explosive environment under worst case conditions. These tests consisted of placing the phone in a test chamber containing an explosive mixture of oxygen-enriched propane and methane. Inside the test chamber the following phone functions were implemented:â€
• The phone was turned on and off
• The phone was open and closed with the power on
• Incoming and outgoing calls were made
• The two-way paging function was activated
• The battery was removed abruptly with the power on
• The battery was removed and installed with the power off
Although the cellular phones’ battery provided sufficient energy to ignite the test gases during the testing it did not. As a result, it was the opinion of the independent third party testing laboratory that it is unlikely that the cellular phone would have ignited a flammable mixture of methane or propane under actual field conditions and that the cause of the flash fire was something other than the cell phone. Both the Department of the Interior and the oil company determined that the cell phone did not cause the fire. Here’s the whole story. http://www.mms.gov/safetyalerts/6.htm#top
As DoggyDaddy points out the FCC considers this a non-problem. “Scientific testing, however, has not established a dangerous link between wireless phones and fuel vaporsâ€. Check out the whole article here. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/wirelessgas.html
Don’t forget to watch the Discovery Channel’s Myth Busters episode on this subject.
Robert, in your post you said, “it is a FACT that cell phones can generate static electricityâ€. Here is an article from the Electro Static Discharge Journal (ESD). http://www.esdjournal.com/static/cell/nycellfire.htm These people do scientific testing on electrostatic discharge for a living, here is an excerpt from the article. “At the ESD Journal, we believe there is a very remote chance that a cell phone could start a fire but it would not be from its own static charges or its radio frequency signals. So many other things are much more likely to have caused the fire. The cell phone's radio signals do not have enough energy within them to start a fire. The cell phone does not generate static charges while being usedâ€.
This paper from Motorola is full of good info on this subject and it’s full of science please read it. http://www.motorola.com/mot/doc/0/203_MotDoc.pdf Here is an excerpt. The facts in this case are clear. They are reinforced by extensive engineering analysis and suggest that there is no sound technical basis to prohibit the use of mobile phones in gasoline stations or single them out as hazards.
Here are some interesting numbers from the National Fire Protection Association. There is an average of 4620 car fires at gas stations every year, leading to 1 death and 37 injuries. Out of the 4620 car fires ¾ of them are caused by mechanical or electrical problems which would occur driving down the road or in the driveway so these have nothing to do with fueling. That means every year there is ¼ of a death and 9 injuries that occur when fueling vehicles (63 people die from lightning strikes). With about 12 billion fuelings every year in the U.S. that’s a 1 in 48 billion chance of dying from a fire while fueling your vehicle, darn good odds. We are 250 times more likely to die from a lightning strike. Here’s the link. http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=305&itemID=18349&URL=Resea...
Robert, some say better safe then sorry, but I think the facts show it is virtually impossible for a cell phone to be a source of ignition at the gas pump. The NFPA numbers show it is extremely remote that any of us will die or be injured in any fueling fire. If we use the PEI Safe Refueling Guidelines, Turn Off Engine, Don't Smoke, Never Re-enter Your Vehicle, then we have virtually no chance of being involved in a fire. This Urban Legend needs to stop, I’m sure there are more people being injured in fist fights at gas stations across the country over this then there are from fires.
Agreed
thanks for the follow up. There seemed to be some dispute re: the static discharges. Glad someone did further testing. And cell phone technology is always adapting. Early on, they emitted enough waves to cook membranes, but now they don't. Anyway, thanks for the follow up, and I definitely agree people should not fist fight in gas stations. ;-)
"If not here, where? If not now, when?"
please sent me more information about history of physics
your site is very well,i enjoyed to read the comments,
FCC Postings
While I don't agree with some of the stupid FCC rulings regarding obscenity, corporate ownership, etc, they have always been a good technical resource. Here is the FCC position on cell phone use at the pump: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/wirelessgas.html (It is a non-problem).
Personally I think you would have to have your phone right down next to the pump handle for the possible small spark to set off a fire. Talking on the phone should cause no static build up at all. On the other hand, grabbing the handle without discharginging yourself on the car's metal frame is just the sort of thing that could cause a sizable spark. A much more likely scenario.
Warnings at gas stations proliferate to cover the owner's butt. Just like "Warning, contents in a coffee cup are hot", or "This sleep aid may cause drowsiness". This is in keeping with the lawsuit recently filed by the California attorney general requesting posted warnings that french fries and potato chips may cause cancer because of a chemical, acrylamide, that the cooking process creates. The same chemical can be found in breads, cereals, and other foods, so I guess they'll need warnings too. If you live in California, you will probably notice that just about every shop you walk into now has a "Prop 65" warning telling you something inside might cause cancer. It's a wonder any of us live to be over 60. For more on acrylamide see:
http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/chem/acrylamide_faqs/en/
Well I've had a good rant, thanks for listening... back to you.