URBAN FACT

Mobile phone sparks fireball at Mobil fuel outlet

Pumping gas and gabbing on the cell phone can be a combustible mix - and Matthew Erhorn is singed proof of that.
Erhorn, a 21-year-old SUNY-New Paltz student, caught on fire Thursday night at a Mobil station near the college when his ringing cellular phone ignited vapors near the gas pump, firefighters said.
He escaped with just minor burns, but his mishap fuels the debate over whether a cell phone can really set off an explosion at a gas station.

Experts blame static

Experts believe that it was static electricity — not the cell phone — that caused the fire. Static fires at the pumps are rare events, but they do happen. The Petroleum Equipment Institute reports on its Web site it has counted 158 reports to date of gas pump fires attributed to static electricity.
Static electricity ignited a gas station fire captured by security cameras in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2002. The customer pumping gas was badly burned, but survived. Static is also suspected in a 1996 fireball at a Tulsa, Okla., gas pump that killed a 33-year-old woman.
Steve Fowler, an electrical engineer from Fowler Associates, says cell phone signals are far too weak to ignite even explosive gasoline fumes. He and Jim Farr, a fire marshal from Gaston County, N.C., study static fire and say your body can build up a static charge in different ways, such as getting in and out of a vehicle.