.....
People in general imagine that, reality is a bit different.
I once had a heated discussion with a friend. He was upset after seeing someone smoking at a gas station. Everyone would agree, it's stupid. But when I tried to explain that during summer the air/fuel ratio would be off and it's at least a bit safer then. Then he was mad at me.
I asked him how many times have you turned off your (open flame) propane fridge in your motor home while refuelling?
-Never.
Has the gas station ever exploded or caught fire?
-No.
Why is that?
Adding an image depicting the flammable air/fuel ratio in closed containers for gasoline and ethanol. In the open air during summer it's almost impossible to ignite gasoline fumes. Only in Hollywood.
But of course gas stations are not in closed containers and even if some part of it would have air which is saturated in fuel vapour at summer air temperature it will be diluted to a flammable mixture by air currents at least in the transition from saturated vapour to surrounding fresh air.
Maybe your friend was exasperated by your lack of logic?
The tanks are. Inside the tank the air/fuel mixture is normally too rich to ignite. The blue temperature area for petrol in the image I attached above is the
only area where you can ignite the vapour in a tank.
At the nozzle you can of course find an igniteable air/gas mixture, if you hold your lighter there then your'e simply stupid. If you try to ignite it there anyway, it will normally not ignite the contents of the tank.
A bit further away from the nozzle, like the open flame in my friends fridge or the guy he mentioned (he wasn't filling up his car), it will be almost impossible because the mixture is too lean.
The attached image was from one of many studies made by MSB regarding the risks of fires in gas stations when E85 was introduced in Sweden.
https://www.msb.se/en/If you wish to read those papers I can probably find them for you. Just ask.
Edit; here's a good example of what
not to do. Cold, lighter, nozzle. Wonderfully stupid.
Still no Hollywood flames or explosion though.