GMeasured by the speed at which a car driver might commit suicide on the A5 road near Witterstadt on Monday morning Audi I drove into the Gräfenhausen gas station and rest area. Although the gas station damaged millions, the consequences were manageable at first glance. But is it possible for more to happen? Will the entire system explode? After all, more than 100,000 liters of gasoline and diesel are stored in underground tanks at gas stations of this size.
As a spokesperson for the German Automobile Club (AvD) emphasized when asked on Wednesday, experts agreed that there is little risk of explosion at the gas station itself because strict safety regulations apply.Safety devices will be regularly dated TÜV Or similar organizations. Monday’s fire may have come from the man’s vehicle, not the oil pump.
Turn off the device to prevent worse
More than 14,000 gas stations in Germany are equipped with shutdown devices, which also prevents worse things from happening in Graefenhausen. Each checkout room at the gas station has an emergency stop button that is within reach of the cashier. This button was pressed by the cashier immediately after the impact on Monday. This prevents the spray supply from underground storage tanks, and the valves prevent the fire from reaching the storage tanks through the distribution system. In such an accident, only about 5 liters of fuel remaining in the fuel tank hose will catch fire. An AvD spokesperson explained that if the gasoline pump fires, it is mainly due to technical defects of the vehicle or the carelessness of the car driver.
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In the past few weeks, a video circulated on the Internet. The video showed a woman who did not unplug the fuel hose from the fuel filler after refueling, and pulled the entire fuel pump when she drove away. In this case, the emergency stop also ensures that the fuel pump is not damaged.
Concrete bollards and curbs for protection
A person has recently made headlines. He uses high-quality fuel instead of diesel, drives to a vacuum cleaner at a gas station, and wants to use a vacuum cleaner to suck up oil. As a result, his car caught fire. In this case, AvD personnel definitely recommend not to move the vehicle anymore, and never try to cancel the wrongly filled fuel by yourself. Only experts with special extraction systems can do this.
In a case like Graffenhausen, destruction of this scale is almost unavoidable. However, an AvD spokesperson said that the oil pump will always be hit during manipulation. Therefore, the Aral gas station chain not only fixed its gas pump with curbs that any SUV can easily overcome, but also installed concrete bollards. However, at the speed that Audi drivers rushed into the fuel pump on Monday, they could not stop the impact on the fuel pump.
Klaus Stillger from TÜV Hessen also emphasized that even if the air pump is burning, underground storage tanks can get the best fire protection, just like in Weiterstadt. He also believes that the risk of car fires is much higher than the risk of fires in gas stations and underground fuel tanks. However, based on Monday’s experience, when a fire hydrant did not provide enough water and the fire brigade had to lay a 1.5-kilometer hose, he suggested improving the fire-fighting water supply at the gas station. For future expansion of gas filling stations with high-pressure hydrogen tanks, further safety measures must be considered.
