http://www.local6.com/news/2687891/detail.html



ALBANY, Ga. -- A hair stylist was pumping gas into her car when her hair burst into flames.

"That scared me to death," said stylist Traci Marshall.

The fire was probably caused by static electricity from Marshall's hair rubbing against her clothes, said her husband, Camilla firefighter Lt. Bill Marshall.

The static electricity apparently mixed with gas fumes and ignited the fire Sunday.

"I started beating my hair to get out the fire and saw flames coming out of the gas tank," she said.

A man with a fire extinguisher put out the blaze.

Traci Marshall had to cut her hair and get her truck repaired.

Bill Marshall advised people to ground themselves before pumping gas by touching the metal of their cars.

"Once you get out of your vehicle, don't get back into the vehicle until you are through," he said.

Officials also remind people to turn off cell phones and pagers when pumping gas because those devices can also spark explosions.

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2000 Ford 7.3 Powerstroke 4x4
2006 Mazda Tribute
1983 Black 300 D (donated to charity)
1993 Teal 300 D (160K) Sold
"I love the smell of burnt diesel fuel in the morning, it smells like ....VICTORY"

Semper Fidelis
USMC 1973-1976

wrt the last bit of advice from the article... I saw one of the Mythbusters episodes where they tried to ignite gasoline fumes with a cell phone; never happened. That's not to say that cell phones _won't_ ignite gasoline, but the mythbuster guys tried pretty hard.

I saw some show where they got the cellphone thing to work, but no int he way they intended. They hopped into the car to answer the phone, hopped out, and didn't ground themselves. Static spark caused a minor ignition.

Women that leave their purses in the car and then hop in to retrieve it can do the same thing. Transport Canada found nearly all pump fires were caused by women, and found that to be the reason. They presumed that the "rash" of cellphone pump fires were actually caused by folks hopping ina nd out and creating a static charge.

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John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

another good reason to drive a diesel

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'73 VW camper
'80 300td wagon

Ha, that's where I drive to get my car worked on, well they say it was in Camilla but I drive through there sometimes too on the way up there depending which way I go. At least she wasn't driving an SUV, lol.