What common activity exposes a person to the explosive power of 26 sticks of dynamite? The answer– handling one gallon of gasoline!

Filling vehicles at self-serve pumps requires millions of people to handle gasoline on a regular basis. Static electricity- common in cold, dry conditions- can create a spark when the driver touches the fuel nozzle. In rare circumstances, the static spark can ignite gasoline vapors, causing a flash fire.

No one knows for sure how many gas pump fires are caused by static electricity. However, 176 static fires were reported to the Petroleum Equipment Institute from 2000 to 2010.

About half of the refueling fires involved the driver getting back into the vehicle while the gas was still flowing into the tank. When the driver stepped out of the vehicle and touched the nozzle to complete the fill-up, a static spark ignited the fumes. I first heard of this phenomenon several years ago at an Extension conference from a colleague in Indiana who was injured in just such a fire.
How does it happen?

When you pull into a gas station to refuel your vehicle, you open and shut the car door, open the fuel tank cover, touch the pump to begin fueling, and touch the nozzle on the pump– all before the gasoline starts flowing. Any static electricity that was picked up in the car has been dissipated several times.
But the danger comes if you get back into your car during fueling. The friction of synthetic materials of the car seat and your clothing may create static electricity, especially during these dry, cold winter months. If you leave the car door open and don’t touch any other metal before reaching for the gas nozzle, that static charge can be released at the nozzle, creating the potential for a flash fire.

Over three-fourths (78%) of the victims of refueling fires are women? Why? Women are more likely to return to their vehicles during refueling for personal safety, to check on child passengers, get money or credit cards from their purse, get warm, or use the phone. Additionally, the synthetic fabrics of women’s clothing and hosiery are more prone to static build-up when in contact with vehicle upholstery fabrics.

To be safe at the gas pump, follow these safety guidelines:
1. Always turn off your vehicle engine while refueling.
2. Stay near the vehicle during refueling.
3. Never smoke, light matches, or use lighters while refueling.
4. Do not get back into the car during refueling. If you must re-enter your vehicle, discharge static electricity when you get out by touching something metal (your car door, a different gas pump, etc.) before reaching for the gas nozzle.
5. To avoid gasoline spills, do not overfill or top off your tank. The fuel dispenser will shut off automatically when the tank is full.
6. When filling a portable gasoline can, always place the container on the ground and keep the pump nozzle in contact with the container while refueling. Containers should never be filled inside a vehicle, in the trunk, on the bed of a pickup or on the floor of a trailer. The carpeting and truck bed act as insulators, allowing static electricity to build up in the can while it is being filled. That static electricity could create a spark between the container and the fuel nozzle.

If a flash fire occurs during refueling, you should leave the nozzle in the vehicle and back away. Shut off the fuel at the pump, using the on-off lever or an emergency shut-off switch. Notify the station attendant at once so that all pumps can be shut off with master emergency controls.

In the event of a fire, the natural tendency is to pull the nozzle out of the car tank. However, the flames will ignite the stream of gasoline like a flame-thrower, causing widespread property damage and the very real potential for human injury. There is not enough oxygen in the car gas tank to make it an explosion risk, so the best thing to do is leave the nozzle in place and let any flames burn out after the pump is shut off.

There is more information about static electricity gas pump fires online, but one good place to start is the Extension fact sheet developed by the Indiana Extension agent who experienced this phenomenon herself. You can find it at www.extension.purdue.edu/cfs/programs/gaspump/resources/gaspump-handout-long.pdf

Linda K. Beech is Cottonwood District Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences.

There is nothing worse than dealing with a computer that refuses to move at the pace you want it to. This gets even more frustrating when the computer was working at your desired speed for a while but has suddenly stopped doing so. Below are some quick how-to’s to speed up your Windows 10 PC.

By far, the No. 1 thing that will bog down your machine is temporary files being stored in the machine. The easiest way to combat this is to download and install the free program CCleaner, https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download

This program will automatically go through and delete all those files that are taking up space on your computer.

1. Download CCleaner (it’s a small program and won’t take up space on your computer)
2. Find the CCleaner install file in your computer downloads folder (or wherever you have set files to download)
3. Double click the application install file and allow it to run on your computer.
4. Once CCleaner is open you just have to press “Run Cleaner” and then press “OK” on the windows that pop up afterwards.
5. When the program has finished running, It will then tell you how many temporary files were deleted. Then you are free to close the program. (I run this program about every other week on my machines.)

If you still haven’t noticed any improvements, then you can dig a little deeper and shut off some unnecessary Windows services.

1. On your Windows machine, press the windows key (next to your ctrl and alt button) and the r key at the same time. After that combination has been pressed, a run command box will open in your bottom left hand corner. From there you can type in, services.msc and press enter or click “OK.”
2. This will open up your Windows services. The first service to look for is one called Superfetch.
3. Once you find it you can right-click on it and select “Properties.”
4. This will open another window.
5. Find start up type and change it to “Disabled.”
6. At the Service Status, go ahead and stop the service and the press “Apply” and then “OK.” You can also apply the same steps to the services, “Background Intelligent Transfer Service” and “Windows Font Cache Service.”

As always, if you have any issues with these or would just like us to go through and help you out with them, we are always here! Any one of our technicians can help you do this, and you don’t even need to leave home. We can work with you remotely or help you if you encounter an issue with the process described above.

ETS can be reached at 785.628.1330 or you can email us at [email protected]. 

When my kids were young, they fell in love with soccer. I was “forced” into coaching, when one of their coaches, an employee of Midwest Energy, was called out of town for an extended period of time because of damaged powerlines related to a tornado. A new coach was needed.
Soccer was a new sport in western Kansas, at least at the competitive level. In Hays, it was comprised of only one or two teams. To play other teams meant participating in tournaments, which required distant travel and overnight stays. Such travel and multiple overnight stays was an unheard of concept in Hays. Back in the early days of my coaching, it was not uncommon for me, my fellow coach and a couple of parents to travel to the tournaments with four to six kids in each of our vehicles (it prompted me to go through a series of Suburbans). Motel rooms were littered with sleeping bags on the floor, and I got very little sleep during those forays.

It was always interesting. It seemed like when we would load up the kids at the beginning of the trip, everything was organized. But as the weekend wore on, stuff happened and my organizational skills seemed to start falling apart.

We would try to do our dinners together. Golden Corral and like restaurants became the destination of choice. Getting everyone there, sitting them down, getting meals paid for, keeping kids’ money separate for each of them, loading the kids back up in the cars, and getting back to the motel, was “herding cats”. It was not unusual for me to try to make a list with the kids’ names on it, and check those names off as we moved from place to place – to be sure everyone was accounted for.

The realities were that we would get to a game and it would be either an exciting win or heartbreaking loss. Kids would have their stuff all over the tournament grounds, new teams would be arriving, and we would have to move our players to a new location or back to the motel. It was not unusual to have to return to the tournament grounds to find something that someone left behind, or depart a motel only to have the motel ship someone’s something back to us.

It is pretty easy to stay organized in life, as long as everything is running smoothly. It is when life gets “exciting” that our organizational skills become challenged. It also becomes difficult when we go down a path that we were not expecting to go down, or a path that we go down is a lot more complicated than we ever thought possible.

Just the other day I had a family come into my office going down that new path. In my meeting was Dad and his two sons. Mom was in the hospital. Mom had fallen, ended up in the hospital, and was going to be discharged in a few days. Sons were frantic. Dad, with his own very significant chronic illness issues, was certain that he could make it another month or two or maybe three, without any outside help.
In talking with Dad, I went through some scenarios with him. It became apparent to me that there were some crossroads that he did not realize were coming up. There was not a good “checklist” for him to follow.

Dad looked at me and said, “I can make this another few months. I am not yet in crisis”. I looked him in the eye and I said, “You are already in crisis”. I know he was a little bit stunned, but as we talked further, I think he breathed a very deep sigh of relief. Someone was going to take care of this. Someone was going to be sure everything gets done. Someone was going to be on his side.

I have been in those situations myself. A couple of years ago my stepfather was quite ill, and the illness caught me by surprise. It was not one of these gradual illnesses, but a “jumping off the cliff” illness. I was afraid I could not catch him. One of my care coordinators and an attorney in my office really gave me some great guidance through the process with my stepfather. The care coordinator actually was instrumental in preparing me and the whole family for my stepfather’s passing. There were so many loose ends that I could not have taken care of without that guidance along the way.

Let me go back to soccer. We had a tournament in Emporia. We had a great win one evening and all went to dinner. We got all of the kids there, fed and went back to the motel. I knew something was wrong. Somebody was missing. Finally, I realized it was my son, Dan. We jumped into the car, flew back over to the restaurant, and there he was sitting on the steps. I do not know how angry he was, but he has never let me forget it. I remembered 14 other kids, but forgot my own son!

It is really okay to get help when you are in a health crisis. Health crises present issues that affect the family, estate plans, finances, as well as some thorough care decisions. Seek help. Don’t leave your son behind!

Randy Clinkscales of Clinkscales Elder Law Practice, PA, Hays, Kansas, is an elder care attorney, practicing in western Kansas. To contact him, please send an email to [email protected]. Disclaimer: The information in the column is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is different and outcomes depend on the fact of each case and the then applicable law. For specific questions, you should contact a qualified attorney.