One of my jobs was in a company that made, among other things, solid paint. One of the most productive product lines was metallic paint, which includes powdered aluminum as a main component.
The people in those factories would carry their cellphones around at all times; production orders were shuffled up and down constantly and the foremen would call the operators with the changes. The new EHS manager was trying to convince the higher-ups to buy factory-owned anti-spark cells same as factories from other businesses used in areas with flammable materials. They laughed and said “bah, we don’t care what the boxes say, there’s never been any kind of accident.” He reminded them that only three years prior nobody in the whole factory owned a cellphone, only because suddenly everybody and his mom had one didn’t mean they’d been around forever. And only because you haven’t driven headfirst into a column of concrete yet doesn’t mean it won’t hurt if you do it. They called him a worrywart.
It took an operator’s death to convince them that freshly-made aluminum powder is, indeed, flammable (the aluminum paper used in kitchens isn’t because it’s covered by a thin layer of oxide, same for aluminum windows etc, or even for “old” aluminum powder). His death was so fast and evident that they didn’t even try to bring him to the ER.
I used to work with a guy who would do a similar trick, said he picked it up in the service. He’d fill a coffee can with gasoline and put out his lit cigar in it, to the shock and horror of those standing nearby. Evidently- and according to him- you need an open flame to ignite gas and/or its fumes, the burning embers of a cigarette won’t do it.
Of course, he was a prick of the highest caliber, and I often found myself wishing he was wrong.
Gasoline needs a fairly high temperature to ignite, a normal burning cigarette isn’t hot enough. If you’re just pouring the gas out, there’s no way for enough fumes to accumulate to do anything. The trick is quite safe.
My brother the car mechanic did something like that to me once. He was fixing my gas tank, and a small amount of gas had driblled out and collected in a pool. After a while I asked him about it, and he took his cigarette out of his mouth and dropped into the puddle, where it went out. Nevermind the fact that he had been smoking while working on my albiet empty gas tank. He said that if he had done it wrong, and the cigarette hit something and a shower of embers came off, they might be hot enough to light the gas.
It wasn’t actually a well, which is why I put the term in quotes. Where on earth would you live- other than perhaps Louisiana- where a well could be a “few dozen feet” deep and be of any use at all, other than perhaps decorative? It was specifically designed by the house’s previous owners as a burn pit, which is why they lined it with the materials they did (I mentioned concrete and stone for simplicity’s sake)- when Mr. Kitty bought the house he specifically asked what it was, and as we were four doors down from the city police and less than a half mile from the city fire department, the owner’s story was easy enough to check out.
I was way more worried about what the garage two doors down was doing to the ecosystem than our paid-bills-burn every couple of months.
I read a story in a car magazine where a reader submitted a story about a car repair he had witnessed himself.
A mechanic had a car up on a lift that had a small leak in the bottom of the gas tank. Nothing major, just and occasional drip. He fired up an oxygen/acetylene torch, adjusted the flame for low temp, wiped away the drop of gasoline forming on the bottom of the gas tank, and applied the torch to the pinhole.
Naturally, this scared the hell out of the guy watching, but the old mechanic told him not to worry as he had done this many times. After a few seconds you could hear the gas boiling and bubbling in the tank from the heat. The mechanic applied a little bit of solder to the pinhole and pulled away the torch. Job done.
He explained that the heat caused the gasoline to bubble in the tank around where he applied the heat. The bubbles, being only gas vapor surrounded by pure gasoline, would bubble, but not explode. The bubbling gas kept the liquid fuel away from the pinhole, and when the metal was hot enough, the solder melted into the hole and it was fixed.
You know, I can see the logic behind doing this repair, and it really isn’t as dangerous as it would first appear, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be around when the work was being done.