Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Smoking at the pump

Evidently he failed to read the notice about NO TALKING ON THE CELL PHONE OR SMOKING NEAR THE PUMP.

A cigarette will not ignite gas or its vapors.
You can toss a lit cigarrette into a bucket of gas and it will go out.
A HOT enough spark or flame will ignite gasoline or its vapors.
A 20,000 volt spark off an ignition wire will do the trick.
A 10,000 volt static spark off of nylon clothing will too.

The things they did back then where crazy

IS THAT YOU IN THE PICTURE? ....LOL

What about selling kerosene out of the "EAT" They even have REAl Coffee. I'm guessing the cook is sticken her head out of the kitchen window.

I wonder if the dog in the picture is dead............

Dang, and I had my mouth all set for some artificial coffee!!!

When we used to 'stick' the tanks at nite sometimes the boss would come out with a lit cigar in his mouth. He would drop the cigar onto the the ground around the fill tube just to get a rise out of us.

On another note, we used to tell the newbies whenever they couldn't get a locked gas cap off in the winter to take a lighter to it.

There was an old guy in my town that ran the Phillips station. When my mom pulled in he would pump her gas with a lit pipe in his mouth. He exhaled through the pipe causing hot embers of tobacco to fly out of the pipe and fall to the ground. No he didn't die in an explosion at he station. He did take his old wrecker ever year on his birthday and tie the cable to a tree beside the station. After tightening the cable he would walk the cable and not fall off. He did this well into his late 70's.

Love these old pictures. Safety can be a pain in the rear but it does save lives. I think of my friend's Grandpa and his missing fingers. There was a time when "you wern't a man until you lost a finger or two". With some of the safety features now you have to really work at getting hurt.
Mike

"With some of the safety features now you have to really work at getting hurt."well "some" guys do!!

Never got hurt @ home, only @ work.

I don't know if you can drop a lit cigarette in a can of gasoline or not but I do know in the old Standard Station garage I worked in in high school one of the mechanics flicked a lit cigarette under a pickup truck they were draining gasoline out of and it burned the truck and singed the rafters in the garage. Its that triangle they talked about in safety class fuel, oxygen and a heat source. In the bucket there is not enough oxygen to creat ignition

Still a lot of people these days, that will walk right by my No Smoking cones I set out while I am unloading, with a cigarette in their mouth. I learned a long time ago to not ask them to put it out. They would throw it down where I was unloading, I just ask them to CARRY it out of the area.
Gas vapors are heavier than air and "fall" to the ground.

Had an old gas hauler tell me of a station he delivered to years ago, (before the days of Stage 1 or 2 Vapor Recovery). He pulled in and started unloading. The vent pipes for the tanks were behind the station. There were two kids out back smoking. Caught the vapors on fire and burned the station down. Kids survived, but badly burned.

[quote=67Chev4X4]I don't know if you can drop a lit cigarette in a can of gasoline or not but I do know in the old Standard Station garage I worked in in high school one of the mechanics flicked a lit cigarette under a pickup truck they were draining gasoline out of and it burned the truck and singed the rafters in the garage. Its that triangle they talked about in safety class fuel, oxygen and a heat source. In the bucket there is not enough oxygen to creat ignition [/quote

....pretty close. I think you have to have an air/fuel ratio of somewhere between 15-21%, give or take a little, to have combustion. It'd be my guess that the ciggy into the bucket and the ratio is too high.

In the late 60's a driver that i worked with(Shell) would actually unload a truck/trailer load of gasoline with a cigarette in his mouth.His theory was that an ash would not be a problem.If nothing else it was the appearance of it--not too smart!

Cigarettes can ignite gas fumes. In todays paper, a local 17 yr old was siphoning gas while holding a lit cigarette. He is now in intensive care with burns over 30% of his upper body. It was a flash fire thankfully, but he is going to be hurting for a long, long time.

http://mythbustersresults.com/special7


When I worked on pumps we would smoke around the stuff all the time ...inside the building where we took them apart and would occasionaly drop lit ones into the gas on the table.
The only fire we ever had was caused by wires comming loose on a pump on the check stand....120 v

Since they just came out with the fire safe cigarette ...(That don't stay lit) I would say his smoke went out and he tried to relite it or it was static electricity.

When I was about 10 - 60 years ago - a mechanic working for my dad would get out of his car every morning, light a cigarette on his way through the door and throw the lit match into the parts wash bucket sitting on the floor. We used gasoline to wash parts but his idea was that there were no fumes to ignite as the gas was undisturbed overnight. One morning some wise kid - guess who - dumped out the old gas, put about 5 gal. of water in the tub with 1 gal. of gas on top. Kicked the pail as the mechanic drove in and ran like hell. Big boom - he never did it again. (neither did I)

Joe, I guess my local Fire Department doesn't agree with you.

A direct quote from the Fire Lt. in charge of the investigation
"The fumes from the gas and the cigarette decided to catch fire," Sanders said. "Any time you're working around fuel or gasoline, do not light a match or smoke."

"In todays paper, a local 17 yr old was siphoning gas "
& his attorney will sue the manufacture for not installing Anti-siphoning device on fuel tank !

Did this occur in California Dick ??? Ed Shaver

It happens everywhere. The criminal gets hurt while performing a crime & sues the person who the crime is being committed against if they get hurt.

I think the learning point of all this is if something has the potential to caue injury or start a fire....don't do it or take the appropriate precautions. Most accidents and injuries are preventable by taking the extra time to do a job safe and not take short cuts.

I even worry about the three pumps I just brought home and have not gutted and have stored inthe garage. While unloading them off the truck some old gas spilled. I put kitty litter on gthe ground to absorb it and cleaned it up, but you could still smell the fumes for days. Each time I opened the elctric doors I wondered if a spark would set off any escaping fumes. I am probably just a little jumpy since we had a grease fire in the house this summer.

Guess I better get off the computer and go clean out some pumps...LOL.

gasoline fumes are heavy and tend to stay to low.
If there is a gas water heater in a garage area here it has to be 18" off the ground and there has to be a wall between it and the car area.

I have been a firefighter for 25 years and have been to many a flash fire where a person was using gas to clean something in the house. Usually the fumes travel to the water heater and once the air fuel mixture is right you get a flash fire usually resulting in burns to the person using the gasoline. You have to have the right mixture and it will happen

I wonder what insurance companies would have to say about us collectors keeping gas pumps and full oil cans in our insured garages?

I drain every oil can that I have whether in the house or not

Hi Guys,

I'll tell you a real short story.Years ago a friend of mine was washing parts in his closed up shop with gasoline.The next thing I heard,he was dead.I know he smoked,but I never heard how he set off the explosion.Smoking?Lighting his lighter?Who knows.All I know is it killed him.

I too will use gasoline to clean parts and/or greasy oil cans.But I will guarantee I do it OUTSIDE and I don't smoke while I'm doing it!!

I hope some of the newbies read this when they consider using gasoline to clean oil can and such.No can is worth risking your life over.

I was alway told " never spin a bearing while washing it in gas" The bearing could spark and light you up. Any one else heard this.

I would think if a bearing sparked it would need to be replaced.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH

Gas is not a good deal for cleaning oil and grease cans up .it dulls the paint on some oil cans. I noticed, better off using soap & water. Oh well I guess were talking about smoking around gas and fumes. which is never a good deal.

Many years ago a family friend was down on the floor in his shop cleaning parts with gas. A hot water heater ignited the fumes and BOOM. The roof of the shop was lifted up and turned side ways in the explosion. But because he was on the floor at the center of the explosion he did not even get hurt. Cleaning with gas is not a good idea.

I think the problem with cleaning a bearing in gas is the friction or chatter you get when you give it a spin just to see how smooth it is. A couple of years ago some kids were playing on a slide and decided to make the slide wet so they could go faster. They chose gas and the friction lit the gas and badly burned one of the kids.I have a hard time believing your safe smoking or having anything burning around gas, maybe lucky

Another gas station story...the Sohio station across the street from our Marathon station had a history of scrubbing their floors down with gas several nights a week.

One day their mechanic was using a cutting torch on an exhaust system...the red hot nut that he cut off fell down the drain and it ignited gas that had accumulated in the sewer system. One guy in the nehborhood had the seat on his toilet blow off.

The safety service director paid a visit to both stations..and of course both denied any wrong doing. The fix was obvious...the owner of the Sohio station put a cover on the drain whenever they used the torches...he continued to use gas to clean the floors until he retired.

A street in Mexico City blew up under similar circumstances.

In the early 80's, in Louisville, Ky, there was a sewer explosion that demolished several miles of downtown streets. If memeory serves me it was from xyleen being dumped into the sewer at a plant. A spark from a car sitting at an intersection was determined to have set off the blast. It was a helluva mess getting around town for a long time in the aftermath.