Slashdot Mirror
Can Cell Phones Ignite Gasoline Vapors?
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Matthew Erhorn was filling his car with gasoline outside of New Paltz, NY when when he flipped open his cell phone to answer a call. The next thing he knew he was engulfed by a ball of fire. Luckily for Erhorn a quick thinking employee hit the emergency fire suppression system and he ended up with only minor burns. Firefighters investigating the accident concluded that the cell phone triggered the fire. Experts at The Petroluum Equipment Institute disagree however, attributing the fire to static electricity. Since 1992 the PEI has documented 158 cases of gas pump fires believed to have been started by static electricity. Apparently cell phone signals are too weak to ignite gasoline vapors, but the human body can generate enough static electiricy (60,000 volts) from simply sliding out of your car seat to do just that. Do you pay attention to all those signs at the gas pump telling you to to make sure your car, cell phone, PDA, pacemaker, etc. are all turned off before you start pumping?"
> Can cellphones really disrupt your average PC in as much as they might ignite petrol fumes...
No, but they can put everybody else within earshot off their work, and into a slow state of boiling rage...
Listening to three other people's incessant mindless babbling over their mobiles for a few hours is a good way to get nothing done, and really angry about it...
I'm guessing their reasoning for banning your mobile is just common courtesy...
Is that the fire chief is so adamant about blaming cell phones rather than simple static electricity.
1. Cell phones emit minimum amount of power (no microwave heating of the fumes).
2. AFAIK there's no documented cases of cell phones starting a gasoline fire.
3. Electric sparks obviously can start gasoline fumes on fire. How do you think a spark plug works?
4. We all know how easily static electricity can build up from simply walking across a rug on a dry day.
Kinda makes you wonder just how much training the fire chiefs have. I'm sure they know how to fight fires, but at least this guy seems to have limited knowledge and analytical skills about how fires start.
AccountKiller
No! Incorrect assumptions like that are exactly why these fires and explosions keep occurring worldwide. The battery could obviously cause a fire, all but the very smallest batteries can, but the primary hazard is sparks caused by the RF voltage induced in the pump nozzle. Under certain conditions of dimensions and position there are resonances at some of the cellular frequencies, which will magnify the actual voltage to the level where a spark will occur.
You are suggesting it's RF resonance causing the explosion as opposed to a spark from the phone igniting the vapours or any static discharge? Please point us to a single piece of evidence.
It amazes me how in the UK, where warning notices are to be seen quite often in filling stations, that imbeciles continue their pathetic and unnecessary conversations while filling. If I see one near me, I move, and quickly...... It is a criminal offence under the petroleum spirit regulations, it is time that it was enforced properly.
I personally don't believe there is a risk, I'm with the static theory.
BTW most HF/VHF/UHF communications equipment is potentially lethal in these circumstances. I know that cellular base stations are sometimes sited on the premises, they are carefully positioned, and the inverse square law ensures that the signal level at the pumps is well below the safety limit.
We all know about the inverse square law, and it's enough to take a mobile phone power down to a level not to affect the brain a few millimeters away let alone a whacking great conductor (with no pointy bits) a few feet away. I refer you to my answer to paragraph one.
It is sad that the general public are so ignorant and ill-informed as to constantly put other people's lifes at risk by this stupid behaviour. In the UK the law requires you to switch off before entering the filling station, off means off, not standby, because if the mobile needs to access the network or respond to an incoming call, its first and unpredictable transmission will be at full power!
That's not what I've read on the GSM protocol. I've read it latches on to the lower power signal to conserve battery.
Don't get me started on where else they are lethal such as on aircraft, at least one businessman is, very properly, in jail in the UK as a result of his wilful ignorance on that score. If I were the judge, I would have made it a life sentence, because he put so many lives at risk, even when told not to. If stiff sentences were handed out for using mobiles in filling stations, the practice would diminish substantially. It would not stop entirely, there is always some idiot who knows better than the safety legislators.
What an irrelevant arguement. This law is about potentially disrupting computer systems on a craft, not about making them explode. And in fact the maximum risk is when the craft is on the ground and not in the air.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
It amazes me how in the UK, where warning notices are to be seen quite often in filling stations, that imbeciles continue their pathetic and unnecessary conversations while filling. If I see one near me, I move, and quickly...... It is a criminal offence under the petroleum spirit regulations, it is time that it was enforced properly.
Heck, I'd be happy if they just enforced the rule that states you must remain at the filling point while pumping. Every day I see people walking away, getting in their cars to wait for the pump, etc.
I, personally, twice in the last 6 years, have witnessed gasoline spilling out of a vehicle when the nozzle failed to kick off. One was a few spots over from me, I ran over and shut off the nozzle. About 2 gallons of gas on the ground.
Another time, I was **driving by** and saw gas spilling from a pickup with nobody around. I whipped into the station, came in close to the truck, slammed into park, jumped out, ran to the truck, and shut off the valve. The whole time, there was a woman inside the truck, talking on her cell phone. You should have seen the look on her face when I came roaring up, jumped out and ran at her truck. Of course, the look on her face when she realized she'd just pumped about 15 gallons of gas on the ground, under her truck, was pretty good too.
She just kept yapping "how did this happen?" I just said something like "the valves aren't perfect, sometimes they don't work. That's why you're REQUIRED BY LAW to stay by the valve when the gas is pumping. See, it says so right there on the pump." I just walked away; she was obviously not the kind of person who actually uses her brain or anything. She was still yammering when I went into the station to report the spill and wash the gas off my hands.
I was in Illinois once, and a station attendant actually got on the PA and said "Pump 4, you must stay within sight of the pump." When they didn't, she cut the flow to that pump.