What not to do with a wet vac 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Okay... this guy didn't remove himself from the genepool, but at this rate, it's bound to happen very soon.
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Shop-vac siphon causes fire
2002-10-15
by Jeff Switzer
Journal Reporter
WOODINVILLE -- A man siphoning gasoline with an electric wet-dry shop vacuum set fire to his two mini-vans and threatened his father's Cottage Lake home Monday afternoon.
Fire crews were called to the tree-lined 16200 block of 190th Avenue Northeast after 3:30 p.m. to find 20-foot-tall flames coming from two 1988 Chevy Astro vans.
The vans were parked side-by-side about 10 feet from the home. The owner of the vans, a man who appeared to be in his 20s or 30s, told fire investigators he had used a shop-vac to siphon gasoline from one of the vans.
The man, who wasn't injured, said he then used a bucket to dump gasoline from the vacuum container into the other van, according to Fire Marshal Joel Kuhnhenn of the Woodinville Fire and Life Safety district.
``This was an accident waiting to happen,'' Kuhnhenn said.
After the first siphon effort, some gasoline remained in the bottom and on top of the shop-vac. When the man turned the vacuum on for a second round of siphoning, an electric spark ignited the lingering gasoline fumes.
The flames quickly leaped to the open gas tanks of the two vans, causing intense heat that shattered the vans' windows. The fire then spread inside the vehicles, Kuhnhenn said.
The man tried to put out the fires with a garden hose but, failing that, ran to a neighbor's house to call the fire department.
Arriving firefighters said heat could be felt about 40 feet away and worried that the fire would spread to the home. Fire crews used water, dry chemicals and foam to douse the gasoline-fed fire.
Kuhnhenn said a Chevy Malibu parked nearby also was damaged and both vans are a total loss. Value of the loss is about $7,000, he said.
Given the potential danger of an electrical spark from the shop-vac igniting gasoline fumes, ``this was a fire that never should have happened,'' Kuhnhenn said. ``The man was very, very fortunate'' he wasn't injured.
Submitted on 10/15/2002
Submitted by:
zak
Reference:
Eastside Journal, Oct 15, 2002
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