Great story on a local news channel last night.  Scary video captured by security cameras.  Here's the text – read and heed!

Static gas pump fires
written by: Mark Koebrich (9NEWS Consumer Reporter) 
Created: 11/18/2004 11:03 PM MST

Click here for original story and video.

It becomes a risk for every driver in Colorado in the winter. Dry, high-altitude air, cool temperatures and static electricity can make for an explosive combination at the gas pump.

They're called "static fires" and women are more at risk than men.

In fact, two out of three victims are women, usually shorter women, who are wearing rubber-soled shoes and winter clothing.

They carry significant charges of static electricity on their bodies that can ignite the vapors on a gas pump.

There have been 160 reports of static fires in 39 states, some resulting in death.

For example, in the oil industry there is a customer known as the "Sweater Girl."

A security camera catches her at she puts the pump handle in her gas tank, gets back in her car and then as she re-emerges moments later, pulling on the hem of her sweater, she again reaches for the pump and is instantly on fire.

Diamond Shamrock executive Glen Pearl says it all happens in an instant.

"In seconds–two seconds the entire pump is engulfed in flame–amazing."

The gas industry can re-create the static spark under controlled conditions. But when it's you at the pump, it's totally unexpected.

It happened to Lori Gunderson of Boulder back in 2001. "My arm was on fire– my sweater," she told 9News.

9News covered the story and Lori remembers vividly the speed at which the fire occurred.

"The fire ignited and it went up my sleeve and singed all my hair and– well not all my hair– but this side and singed my eyelashes."

Gunderson fits the industry profile of a static charge victim.

Seventy-eight percent are women who get back in their cars after starting the pump to do one of four things: to attend to children, to return a credit card to their wallet, to get cash or simply to stay warm.

University of Denver Professor Robert Amme, an expert on static charge, says the result of any of those actions is a build-up of the static electricity.

"So the spark is the equivalent of the spark plug. You set it off when you reach for the gas pump and zap–you discharge into the vapors."

And the flames quickly follow.

The key is to not get back in your car, something 9News watched as people did time and again.

If you do get back in you car, touch another metal surface like the side of your car before grabbing the pump handle again.

Lori Gunderson does it religiously.

"Now I touch the car all the way to the gas pump. I mean I don't get back in the car, but if I've moved around to clean the windows or whatever I do, I touch- touch- touch- touch."

All the experts say, you should do the same.

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