# Another cell phone / gas station question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-cell-phone-gas-station-question/291023>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 20, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-cell-phone-gas-station-question/291023 "2005-02-20T15:13:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-cell-phone-gas-station-question/291023/1 "2005-02-20T15:13:55Z")

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This is not a question about whether cell phones cause fires at gas stations.

OK, here goes:

I was talking to a co-worker about something, and somewhere along the line she mentioned something about not using cell phones at gas stations because they could cause a fire. I tried to persuade her that the best evidence was that that’s just UL. I also mentioned that _Mythbusters_ had tried their dangdest to cause a fire, and were unsuccessful. She said that she had seen an interview on _20/20_, or _Today_ or some other infotainment drivel with a woman who had caused a fire when she answered her phone.

This was not the incident in New Palz, NY, last year when some chuckle-head firefighter said, “Yup, it wuz a cell phone.” That incident happened to a guy.

So I started digging. I found this video clip.

[http://www.electrical-contractor.net/Forum/Safety/gasfireclip02-13-04.avi](http://www.electrical-contractor.net/Forum/Safety/gasfireclip02-13-04.avi)

This shows a woman who starts pumping gas, then goes back inside her car to use her cell phone (I assume–you can’t really see). After she uses it, she gets back out and touches the pump handle–_with no cell phone in sight_–the spark very obviously starts when she touches the handle. A very obvious (to me, anyway) case of a static spark.

Now the GQ:

Is anyone familiar with this “incident,” that I can be confident that this was the case (and interview) that my co-worker saw? I’m not going to pursue trying to set her straight on this, because this is a losing battle. I’d just like to know for future reference.

(And I’ve already checked snopes, and I didn’t see this clip listed.)

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**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-cell-phone-gas-station-question/291023/2 "2005-02-20T15:36:28Z")

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I’ve seen a number of of clips of sparking incidents, so it’s hard to say. One of our local news programs did a whole segment on this phenomenon. What’s worse, they demonstrated, is that people’s gut reaction, taking the nozzle out of the car, is more likely to torch your vehicle (since the nozzle is still spewing flammable gasoline) than leaving it in place (where the seal of the nozzle against the tank is more likely to prevent anything but the gas remnants on the outer part of the nozzle from catching fire). :eek:

All the ULs about cell phone gas station fires I can find online deal with men, so I don’t know where your friend came up with the story she related to you.

This little tidbit popped up on several websites:

> [@](#):
>
> Friends are warning friends all over the Internet to dock their cell phones or risk becoming a fireball at the gas pump. Yet there has never been one recorded incident of a cell phone causing a fire at a gas station. Those warnings would be far more useful if they admonished friends to protect themselves against static electricity, which has ignited at least 150 fires at gas pumps according to the American Petroleum Institute. Just this month in Albany, Georgia, the Associated Press reported that a hair stylist was pumping gas into her car when her hair burst into flames. Her husband, Camilla firefighter Lt. Bill Marshall said the fire was probably caused by static electricity from his wife’s hair rubbing against her clothes.

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**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-cell-phone-gas-station-question/291023/3 "2005-02-20T18:02:40Z")

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I had this clip forwarded to me from one of our engineers because it shows that static discharge can cause pump fires.  
If you watch the clip, the lady gets back into the car, slides part way back out, then in, then back out again without touching the metal portions of the car. She also pulls her sweater down. All of these activities can under the correct conditions create static electricity. Because she never grounded herself prior to reaching for the pump, a spark ignited the fuel.  
Here is a great [page](http://www.pei.org/static/) page from the Petroleum Equipment Institue which has the clip and they say that it is static not a cell phone. They have several pages dedicated to static and refueling.