Reminds me of the story of someone using a match or lighter to check a car's gasoline level. Never knew if it was true, so googled it.

People do it.

Copy and paste into google:

check gasoline level with lighter

That's how Dad's boat got burned...

Late 40's, gasoline engine. Gas leaks into bilge, owner lifts hatch to look, fires lighter to see better...

Resulting blast throws him and the hatch overboard, sets bilge on fire. Marina operator is nearby, drags his unconscious body to shore and revives him. (early Darwin award candidate? should have left him in the water...)

Put out the boat fire with nearby fire hose. Saved hull but back cabin roof is gone. Boat was sold to locals who put in a sawmill diesel and then ran it aground and sank it in 53.

The stories it could tell...

Still, my best gasoline story is from my youth...

A local gas station closed because the underground tanks were leaking and polluting the groundwater. Owner didn't want to pay for new tanks.

Pumps are gone, building is abandoned. Kids use the lot for playing basketball, etc.

One day one of the kids notices the old filler pipes for the underground tanks (can you see this coming?) On a dare he drops a match down the pipe... nothing happens. Now bored, he finishes the pack of matches, casually dropping them down the pipe... suddenly, oh, oh... KAWOOSH!!! KAWUMP!!!

I was not present but I heard and felt it 3 blocks away. Witnesses said the filler pipe roared like a rocket engine into the air for a second or so, then the ground heaved when the tank thumped! The concrete was buckled in the parking lot!

Somehow none of the 5 or 6 kids right there got hurt (although a couple kept running till they hit the Wisconsin line!)

Nobody ever got officially blamed and it only broke windows in the old gas station building. Sometimes I wonder how we didn't all get killed.