An Indonesian man suffered severe burns on his face when his cell phone ignited a fire at a gas station in 1999, according to an e-mail message circulating on the Web. That same year, the message claims, an Australian man exploded when his cell phone rang near the gas pump.
In response to those incidents, the e-mail further alleges, Shell Oil recently issued a warning that when a mobile phone rings it can produce enough energy to trigger a small fire if the user is pumping gas while toting the phone.
The message is nothing but an urban legend, say representatives from the wireless and petroleum industries. But it's clearly one with legs: It has made the rounds online for the past three years, according to Snopes.com, a website dedicated to debunking urban myths.
For its part, Shell denied that it ever issued any kind of warning against cell-phone use in gas stations.
"This e-mail has been circulating on the Internet for some time now," said Shell spokeswoman Stephanie Johnson. "We can't vouch for the events it describes, or the source of the e-mail."
Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association trade group, said he has received at least one question about it every week for the last three years.
"It is in fact an urban legend," Larson said. "We have not come across a legitimate news source that has reported that gasoline or gas fumes are being ignited by a mobile phone."
Robert Renkes, a spokesman for the Petroleum Equipment Institute, said he has documented every reported gas station fire for the last several years. "We have not found a cell phone responsible for any fire since the beginning of mankind," he said.
If neither industry has ever officially linked cell phones to gas station fires, why is the urban legend so rampant?
Renkes said he noticed in the e-mail rumor's most recent incarnation a link drawn between cell-phone use and static electricity. Cell-phone use, he said, does not cause fires, but in rare circumstances a static discharge can create a spark at the gas pump.
For example, Renkes has documented instances in which motorists get back in their cars while refueling. When they get out of the car to replace the nozzle, they discharge static electricity -- a potentially dangerous combination in proximity to the gas tank. Renkes said no link between cell-phone use and static discharge exists, however.
It's also possible that government-mandated warnings accompanying cell phones may have led someone to craft the alarming e-mail.
Before it merged with Sony, for example, Ericsson included this message in the user manual of its T66 cell phone: "Turn off your mobile phone when in any area with a potentially explosive atmosphere. It is rare, but your mobile phone or its accessories could generate sparks. Sparks in such areas could cause an explosion or fire resulting in bodily injury or even death. Areas with a potentially explosive atmosphere are often, but not always, clearly marked. They include fueling in areas such as petrol stations, below decks on boats, fuel or chemical transfer or storage facilities"
Motorola and Nokia also include similar warnings in their user manuals. And Exxon gas stations have even begun placing warning stickers about cell-phone use at the pump.
But some cell-phone makers say they are simply complying with a British law that mandates that all battery-powered devices carry such warnings. Nokia, for example, chose to include the warning in all of its manuals worldwide, rather than rewrite the manual for each individual country, said Keith Nowak, company spokesman.
Like all batteries that produce energy, cell-phone batteries could conceivably ignite an electrical spark, although the chances are so remote that it's hardly a risk, Nowak said.
Renkes said the manufacturers include the warning to "cover their butts for legal reasons."
"It pretty much would never happen," Nowak said. "But the place where our warning comes from is the U.K., where, basically, all battery-operated devices -- whether it's a Walkman or a garage door opener, or whatever -- must carry a warning."
And Snopes.com disputes even that slight possibility.
"The claim that the batteries used in a cellular phone can ignite gasoline seems specious, since cellular phone batteries are the same voltage as automobile batteries (12V DC) but deliver far less current," the website stated. "Likewise, the claim that a 'cellular-phone ringer uses more than 100 volts for excitation' is a curious artifact of the regular telephone era: Cellular phones don't have ringers. They produce audio tones that simulate the sound of a ringing telephone."
In other words, don't fret too much if you forget to turn off your cell phone the next time you go to fill 'er up.
