Woman badly burned decanting petrol

[Blu]

here

Horrific.

It doesn't sound ilke a 'jerrycan' incident, but I hope there are no more like it over the coming weeks. Safer to stay put than store petrol or be pouring, syphoning or decanting it.

Horrific yes, but why would anyone decant petrol near a heat source? Hope she recovers well though.

I saw that :( Is only a few miles from here. Hope she recovers well.

Agree, horrific.

But what a silly thing to do.

I hope the lady concerned is OK.

I hope that people are not storing/decanting petrol in high rise flats. This whole situation is just ridiculous. Can you imagine if someone had a similar accident in a block of flats, many people could be seriously injured or killed.

It was seriously silly, yes, but lots of people just aren't used to thinking of petrol as a properly dangerous substance, I'm afraid. After all, few of us really handle (i.e. decant etc) it on a regular basis.

Poor woman. Stupid government panicking everyone like this - do they not realise how hysteria spreads so easily?

Very, very sad.

What the hell goes through people's minds though, it is beyond me sometimes.

I know the poor woman is very badly burned and I feel very sad for her and her family but..???

Didn't our esteemed government tell people to store extra petrol in jerry cans or did I imagine that?

What a fucking stupid thing to do

The problem with living in a nanny state is no-one has any experience of risk any more.

3 littlefrogs i live in a flat and this is what worries me. If i see any neighbours taking big jerry cans in doors i will be ringing the fire chief to report it as well as to ask what to do about it.

Yes they recommended jerry cans, and the FBU made well-reported statements about safe storage (proper containers, in sheds or garages).

No one thought to cover the possibility of someone decanting it from an unspecified container into a glass jug, in a kitchen, whilst cooking something over a naked flame.

I hope she makes a good recovery.

And that the rest of the population learns something from this, and there are no further incidents.

Yes, Maude did suggest people fill a jerry can. I don't suppose he imagined that they'd start decanting petrol in their kitchens though. Cameron suggested people might like to fill their tanks up. In all honesty, is that really so crazy if the fuel supply is threatened? How pissed off would we all be if the Govt said nothing & we were all stuck without any fuel.

I feel desperately sorry for the woman & her family & I sincerely hopes that she recovers and isn't too badly scared. However, to suggest that a minister should resign (as some pundits in the press & on the opposition benches are doing), because someone was misguided enough to start emptying & re-filling containers of petrol in their kitchen is wrong too. We all have to take a degree of responsibility for our own lives - don't we?

The woman did something very stupid. It is horrific, but nobodies fault but her own. Anyone blaming the government for this is being ridiculous.

I would probably not have considered the idea of fumes igniting like that.

Mind you I don't normally play around with petrol anyway especially not in the house, but I can see how easily something like that could happen.

I do blame the government advice which advocates storing and dispensing petrol at home. I think it was a f*cking stupid idea to say that to the general population. People are not used to dealing with this substance out of a strictly controlled environment, ie a petrol station.

I hope she will be alright.

I do not think that this woman's injuries are the fault of the government, no. It was an accident presumably born of not realising that fumes are ioncredibly flammable, or in her pre-occupation, thinking about the cooker being on.

However, I do think it is the government's responsibility NOT to tell people to illegally store petrol in jerry cans. It's all very well if your own petrol (for your enormous ride-on mower or the out board for your boat) is stored in a detaached garage or shed the other side of your wide gravel drive, but 20l of petrol stored on the balcony of a tower block is a starting point for towering inferno.

And I do blame the gvt for starting a totally needless and ludicrous panic by telling people to be prepared and fill up - when a strike isn't even a possibility for well over a week!

But still- our individual sense of responsibility is paramount.

That is a fucking dreadful thing to say, MrsMeaner. Feel better now do you?

I agree with Blu.

How was she to know, anyway...it's not the sort of thing they teach you at school. Or indeed how to deal with such an event without making it a hundred times worse.

The whole point is having petrol in anything other than a sealed petrol tank inside a vehicle is NOT NORMAL for about 90% of the population, so of course the correct H&S procedures are not widely known.

I'm hesitant to say it but I am thinking it, that some people on this thread sound more limited in intelligence than the poor woman who had the accident.

I used to come home after work with my sleeves seeped in paraffin from a parts washer. I didn't always get changed before doing other stuff, I'm just grateful I wasn't a big cook in those days as I might well have blown myself up.

If no one tells you these things, you don't know. And I was working in an engineers FGS.

I think the jerry can thing is a bit of a distraction and it won't actually make any difference if the Govt say you can't actually use one to carry fuel. It is illegal to carry more than 20l of fuel at any one time - so yes the old fashioned 20l jerry can is out - but you can still carry 10l & 5l containers perfectly legally. The maximum amount of fuel you can store at your home is 30l. Presumably people have been doing this for some considerable time, if they own a boat or a mower/strimmer/saw etc - agee that it is less likely in a block of flats - but still possible.

It is not dangerous or illegal to fill up an approved container with fuel, seal it & take it to your home & then empty it into your car. If you do that in close proximity to a barbeque or with a fag hanging out of your mouth - then it is dangerous.

I can't help wondering what the hell we are teaching people, if grown adults don't know that fuel is combustible. How do they think fossil fuel cars work?

"all very well if your own petrol (for your enormous ride-on mower or the out board for your boat) is stored in a detaached garage or shed the other side of your wide gravel drive"

Bit of a snob going on about gravel drives, boats and detached garages aren't you? Plenty of ordinary suburban garden sheds contain a can of fuel for a lawnmower and people in tower-blocks are not as thick as you seem to think. Next you'll be blaming the government when someone burns themself on a Greggs pasty they've reheated at home....

Cogito - very neat pasty reference there

I cannot believe people are calling for Francis Maude's resignation over this. It probably never occurred to him that someone would do something so utterly stupid.

MrsMeaner - that thought crossed my mind

I do wish this lady a speedy and full recovery, but she has no-one to blame but herself.

it is not the governments fault that someone did something really stupid.
they were stupid saying people should store fuel in a jerry can.
but I doubt for one moment they would (or anyone) would imagine someone would do something so stupid.

there is no need to be horrible though, not everyone is equally intelligent, NT, able to assess risk or endowed with masses of common sense - she didn't even want the fuel for herself, she was trying to be helpful and is paying horrific price

cannot help thinking of the stupid things I've done when hypomanic/manic

Well she didn't know it was stupid.

Lots of people wouldn't know that. Yes, you would not set fire to the petrol with a naked flame but having it within I dunno, a few metres of a cooker, well unless you realised that fumes ignite then you wouldn't think it was stupid.

And how close do they have to be to ignote? I mean do you know that?

If the govt is going to encourage folk to store hazardous substances in their homes, and yes I believe this is what they did the other day - they need to prepare said people with a public education initiative, however brief, about the use of that substance and what you should not do near to it.

You wouldn't tell everyone to go and buy a chainsaw without some kind of leaflet being produced.

ignote

that's a good word

but Flightty people do fill containers all the time. Everyone with a petrol mower, chainsaw, strimmer, outboard engine all do this all the time.
Surely, people must have seen all the signs at petrol stations saying don't smoke. Have we really got to the stage where we can't fill a container with petrol without Government guidance?