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WASHINGTON – A bill tucked away in grand spending legislation President Donald Trump enacted on Sunday will require portable fuel containers, including plastic gas cans, to include “flame mitigation devices” for help prevent explosions from igniting inside.
The “Portable Fuel Container Safety Act of 2020” establishes “performance standards to protect against explosions of portable fuel containers near open flames or other sources of ignition” and directs the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to “enact a final rule to require flame attenuation devices in portable fuel containers” within two and a half years.
A report released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to accompany the original version of the bill in 2019 cited the findings of a 2013 NBC News investigation into portable plastic gasoline containers.
The NBC News investigation found that under certain conditions the containers were susceptible to explosions that could cause serious burns.
The new law comes after a long battle to force the container industry to add such devices to plastic gas cans and other fuel containers. Over the past decades, more than 80 lawsuits filed on behalf of the plaintiffs have alleged that portable gasoline cans have exploded and caused severe burns, some fatal.
One of the lawsuits was brought by Karen Kornegay of Louisiana, whose 19-year-old son Dylan died in 2010 after sustaining severe burns to 80 percent of his body. A can he had used to light a bonfire allegedly exploded and doused flaming gasoline.
Although Kornegay admits that her son shouldn’t have used a can of gasoline to start a bonfire – as the container industry warns never to – she told NBC News she believes that the design of the container was responsible for the severity of his injuries.
The lawsuit of Kornegay and others claimed that the containers were dangerous and faulty, susceptible to “flashback” explosions because their designs did not include any flame attenuation devices.
A backfire explosion can occur when the steam escaping from the can comes in contact with a flame or spark. Steam can ignite and “flow back” inside the can.
A type of flame attenuation device, called a “flame arrester”, which usually consists of pieces of mesh or discs with holes in it intended to interrupt the flame, is used in “safety” gas cans, fuel tanks and some containers of other flammable liquids, such as some brands of charcoal lighter fluid and even some alcohol bottles. But until the new law, there was no federal requirement for certain portable fuel containers.
Kornegay was delighted to hear that the design changes had become law. “If I could be speechless I would be speechless because it’s something that has weighed so heavily on my heart,” she said. “We remember all the children, adults and people this has happened to.”
Another mother, Margrett Lewis of Sonoma, Calif., Was a driving force in passing the new law. One of her twin daughters suffered severe burns when she and her sister attempted to pour flue combustible product into a ventless fireplace from a container without a flame arrester.
According to Representative Mike Thompson, D-California, who sponsored the original legislation in 2019, Lewis “championed the drafting and passage of the bill.”
“Flame accidents have tragic consequences, but the solution is smaller than a penny and cheaper than a nickel,” Thompson said in a press release issued by his office.
“It’s bittersweet,” Lewis said in the same statement. “This law, too late to save my daughter from the horrors of a burning unit, ensures that every year, [thousands] will be protected from tragic burns and death. I’m so proud of her and her twin sister for progressing. “
Contacted by phone this week, Lewis bluntly described her motivation. “I can’t let someone else get burned,” she said.
The 2013 NBC News survey reported on tests the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts conducted with support from the gas can industry – to determine if the portable plastic gas container was susceptible to flashback blasts .
The test results showed that under certain limited conditions – including a very small volume of gasoline left inside – such explosions are possible.
The day after the investigation was broadcast on NBC News on TODAY and posted on NBCNews.com, the CPSC called on manufacturers to add flame arresters to plastic gas cans.
Following the NBC News investigation, WPI continued two more phases of testing, also with industry support, to determine if flame-attenuating devices such as flame arresters could help prevent explosions.
These tests found so, concluding in 2016 that the mitigation devices are “necessary” to deal with possible explosions, and noting that some prototypes of the devices had passed safety, durability and functionality tests.
Ali S. Rangwala, the fire protection engineering professor who performed the tests in WPI’s combustion lab, is pleased with the new requirement.
“I’m so happy,” he told NBC News in a text, “that the work we have done is now enshrined in law.”
The industry had already agreed to a new technical standard two years ago, at the end of 2018. A committee made up of industry representatives, consumer safety advocates and CPSC officials established “requirements performance for Flame Mitigation (FA) devices in portable fuel containers ”. “A flame attenuation device,” he said, “must be provided in each PFC opening to protect the container openings from possible propagation of a flame in a combustible-air mixture flammable to the air. inside the container. “
Reporting on this development on its website, the Portable Fuel Container Manufacturers Association noted that containers meeting the standard “are already produced.”
The PFCMA said its member manufacturers began “introducing flame mitigation devices on almost all of their PFCs from about three years old” in 2017. It said it “enthusiastically supported the new law in part of our members’ unwavering focus on the safety of their products for consumers “and described the addition of the flame attenuation device as” an additional safety measure for consumers who, despite a common knowledge of the risks, abuse gasoline to start or accelerate a fire “.
The PFCMA stressed that consumers should never use gasoline to start or accelerate a fire.
The law signed on Sunday includes a long timeline, directing the CPSC to make its final rule “no later than 30 months” from the date the law was enacted. It also includes an “exception”, stating that the requirements of ” [industry] standard… be treated as a consumer product safety rule “if the CPSC determines that they meet the requirements of the law.
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