10Meters News Service

What goes around come around. In this case, it is another spate of e-mails warning about the hazards of using a cell phone while gassing up at the service station. The e-mails, which began circulating in 1999, caution "mobile phones can ignite fuel or fumes" and contain examples of phone-ignited accidents.

Industry groups have responded to these warnings in the past and continue to caution that while fire dangers may exist, the e-mails are a hoax and the accidents cited are unconfirmed.

Accidents listed in the e-mails include one that says a ringing cell phone on the trunk of a car destroyed the car and the gas station. Another says an individualšs face was severely burned when he or she answered a ringing cell phone. The third tells of burns to the thigh and groin when a cell phone in a user's pocket ignited after it rang.

Among the groups denying the validity of the e-mails is the Petroleum Equipment Institute (PEI), which is often included in the e-mails as a resource for information on the cell phone hazard. PEI, which this year launched a Static Free safety campaign, does caution that static electricity is a known hazard during re-fueling. But it adds it has "not documented any cases of cellular phones causing fires at gas stations. Our report has nothing to do with cell phones whatsoever."

PEI also links to Snopes.com, an "urban legend" Web site that has monitored the cell phone warnings since they first began circulating in Indonesia. The examples used then were later found to be false.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 1999 that similar reports from Canada had also been fabricated.

However, industry groups, including oil companies, are not giving a blanket "no danger" to the ignition rumors. One reason: phone manufacturers such as Nokia include warnings about using cell phones at gas stations.

Operating manuals for Nokia phones advise users to "switch off your phone when in any area with a potentially explosive atmosphere and obey all signs and instructions. Sparks in such areas could cause an explosion or fire resulting in bodily injury or even death."

ExxonMobil says on its Web site that "there are no documented cases that link cell phones to fires at service stations," but adds, "please turn off your cell phone and other electronic devices, such as pagers and portable CD players at the pump as a precautionary measure."

Also weighing in: the U.S. Navy, which responded to employee questions about the e-mail warnings by contacting the U.S. National Fire Protection Association. According to that group, cellular telephones as well as "full-function" pagers "are not designed for use in an environment where an ignitable atmosphere might exist."

Under certain circumstances, the national fire protection group advised, "it would be possible" to create an ignition-capable spark with a cellular telephone. That scenario involves "dropping the telephone in such a way that the battery is ejected and is short-circuited across its charging terminals. This, of course, would have to happen in an environment that contains an ignitable atmosphere."

It adds that the chance of "all the right conditions coming together at the same time are distinctly remote."