You may have seen that it is truly dreadful sometimes how you see on the TV news vehicles light up into ball of flames while parked at the petrol pump of a petrol station as they are filling up the tank.
The horrible part is that it’s not always due to negligence of using flame from smoking or mobile phone static electricity. In this article I would like to give you a reminder about how vulnerable we are when we are next to highly flammable fluids like petrol even if you’re not playing with fire.
Here’s why You need to be extra careful when you fill up your tank
You see all it takes is a spark to ignite the fumes leaking out of your petrol fill hole to start a raging ball of fire. In many cases what has happened is the static electricity you are holding in your body is enough to create a tiny spark as you make contact with your car which is something called (grounding) also when static electricity creates a positive charge build up in your body and you touch something polar opposite that is negative charge the current will transfer from you to the object thus creating a spark in the process.
Crucial Step to discharge electricity when you fill up at the petrol station
So next time you fill up your tank step outside the car with the car motor turned off and touch the roof or metallic part of your car with the palm of your hand. This step will discharge your positive static electricity charge onto the car before you start to handle the fuel pump.
Other Causes of Danger around the fuel pump at petrol stations.
Obviously don’t light up a cigarette or smoke and also don’t use your mobile phone while filling up your tank. Mobile phones are usually banned from use at petrol stations because there were cases of discharge of spark somehow causing a fire.
Safety Measure For Petrol & Oil Spill’s while at the petrol Station
Call the attendant at the register and let them now that you spilt some petrol or oil whilst filling up. They should block off the fuel pump area until they clean it up.
Here are some videos of cars on fire at petrol stations as a reminder of the dangers to filling up at the petrol station.
Here is a video showing how a mobile phone can potentially ignite fuel close by.
Fuel and Fire don’t mix to well for a happy ending as we seen in some cases. And to make it worse sometimes you don’t even need to be playing with fire for accidents to happen like this. Make sure you discharge your static electricity before you fill up the tank and definitely don’t get back into your car and build your static electricity up again in you. like was done on the video.
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