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Don't you hate it when you spill gasoline and then your lit cigarette falls from your mouth, while your wife is in the bathroom?

A Revere man faces arson and attempted-murder charges after his house caught fire while his wife was inside last night.

Dale Peretti, 40, had bail set at $25,000 at his arraignment today, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

Prosecutors charge Peretti doused the first floor of the house with gasoline, then lit a match in the dining room - outside the bathroom his wife was in at the time.

Peretti, however, had an alternate explanation:

Perretti allegedly stated that he had accidentally spilled gasoline when he dropped a gas can, and that the fire started when a lit cigarette fell from his mouth and ignited it.

Surveillance video from the gas station where he said he bought the fuel, however, did not show him making any purchases.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Then he could have run her down with a truck and pretended that he didn't see her or know that he hit anything.

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Science tells us that a lit cigarette (or even a lit joint) can't light a puddle of gasoline. Surface temperatures are not hot enough on the ashes of the cigarette and the gas fumes are not likely in the proper ratio for perfect combustion meaning even more energy (higher temperature) than the optimal temperature is required.

So, the cigarette isn't hot enough anyways AND the gasoline isn't perfectly mixed with air meaning the temperature has to be even hotter than optimal.

Thus, this man lit the gasoline with something other than a lit cigarette falling out of his mouth and is a lying sack of shit.

Source

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I'm not especially comforted by the scientific report. Those signs at gas stations saying to not smoke while fueling seem to make sense and rather have them than not.

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No, a match or a lighter DO put off enough energy to ignite gas fumes at less than optimal mixtures!

BUT if you already HAD a lit cigarette, you can smoke it while you are pumping your gas and you will not turn into the Human Flame.

The warnings are present because drawing that distinction is WAY more difficult than the average person who has already made the poor life decision to be a smoker is ever going to be able to handle correctly. So, it is absolutely simpler to just tell Smokey McSmokerson to wait until he's back in his enclosed carbon coffin car and driving away before he grabs another cancer stick.

However, none of that helps the murderous douchebag who tried to light his wife on fire while she was on the can.

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Say, for example, pour a cup of gasoline all over your clothes, and then have someone flick a lit cigarette at you?

I sure wouldn't.

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For gasoline to combust, it must be mixed with the right amount of air.

On one hand, the "right" amount of air occurs over a wide range of mixtures, making gasoline very dangerous.

On the other, 100% gasoline is not the "right" amount.

In other words, no, not a good idea because the gas vapor/air mix coming off clothing would likely ignite when a ciggy was introduced to the vapor/air mix. On the other hand, if this jerk was able to "drop a cigarette and start a fire", he would have been severely burned in the resulting explosion of gas vapor and air because THAT is what the cigarette would have ignited, not the puddle. He wouldn't have been able to drop a ciggy in a pool of gas and ignite it (see 100% gas = no boom).

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The required amount of air to gas ratio for gasoline is actually fairly tight compared to a lot of other combustible gases. Hydrogen gas has a HUGE range of ratios that will ignite (something like 10-80% hydrogen-to-air). But gas is something like 5-8% gas-to-air. A fairly tight range.

Also, the cigarette itself is just a non-starter (literally). The core of the smoldering tobacco is at the right temperature, but it's never exposed to the air enough to cause the chain reaction that leads to inflammation. There's all the ash and things around it which are at much cooler temperatures. You need plenty of surface meeting fairly optimal conditions to light gas fumes. It's why you need a match or lighter and an enclosed space to maintain the gas-to-air ratio.

You are correct that when the cigarette, having not lit any gases, reaches the gasoline, the liquid puts out the fire in the cigarette and nothing goes boom.

In fact, check out the Mythbusters test called "Gas Room Boom" where they try to light methane gas (optimal at 10% ratio to air) in a test kitchen with different gun muzzle flashes. They never get the room to explode. They only get it to work eventually with overcharged rounds and using hydrogen gas instead of methane (also, shooting through a milk carton won't stop the explosion if it is going to happen, movie myth busted).

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Would you be willing to (literally!) bet your life on you being right? I wouldn't.

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This has been definitively demonstrated in a controlled experiment by Mythbusters.

Follow the links. Learn. Shut up.

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But when I do, I make sure that I have a lit cigarette in my mouth.

Seems legit.

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Kaz beat me to it but I was going to take issue with the lit-cigarette-and-gasoline malarkey because a thousand years ago I learned from Pete Molloy on Adam-12 that you can't do that. Someone was threatening to throw a lit cigarette in a puddle of gasoline if anyone came one step closer or something.

It stopped the rookie there, Kent McCord (too lazy to Google his character name), but Marty Milner kept on moving. The perp tossed the smoke into the puddle, and it fizzled out.

It's one of my 'weird things you remember all your life for no apparent reason'.

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... in The Birds?

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If memory serves, that guy threw a match.

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Jim Reed

~eeka who is slightly obsessed with all things Jack Webb

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So your saying that my fear of a cigarette that's tossed out the window on the highway and landing in my under carriage will not blow up my car! Best news I've heard all day.

It's hard to fight science but I will still cringe every time I am in direct path of a lit "butt".

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But let's be clear. There are lots of other things outside your car that can catch fire that aren't gasoline....like underbrush in a semi-dry forest. But if a lit cigarette butt could blow your car up, then firefighters would have to park their trucks a few blocks away and run to the fires on foot.

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Now, this:

Science tells us that a lit cigarette (or even a lit joint) can't light a puddle of gasoline. Surface temperatures are not hot enough on the ashes of the cigarette and the gas fumes are not likely in the proper ratio for perfect combustion meaning even more energy (higher temperature) than the optimal temperature is required.

So, the cigarette isn't hot enough anyways AND the gasoline isn't perfectly mixed with air meaning the temperature has to be even hotter than optimal.

Thus, this man lit the gasoline with something other than a lit cigarette falling out of his mouth and is a lying sack of shit.

has to be the biggest bunch of BS I've read in quite some time! The "No Smoking" signs are on or near the fuel tanks for a reason. Get the drift?

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Because someone lighting up with a match or a lighter could set off the vapor above the liquid. Because an unlikely string of events could set off their expensive inventory and cause all kinds of paperwork.

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It's because, although a burning cigarette can't blow up the fuel tanks, lighting a cigarette just might.

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I sourced the science...but all it takes is for you to say "that's BS" and suddenly you think you're right?

Good on ya...good luck with that.

By the way, cell phones won't bring a plane down if you play Angry Birds during takeoff and landing. Any potential radio interference is so small that it won't even reach the controls if you're playing directly on the outside of the cockpit door. But for years the FAA has warned against it because old, outdated technologies said it was possible. They're finally about to change that policy next year...but by your logic, we're all going to die since there's already a sign for a reason.

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Meanwhile, how's the wife (other than freaked)? Did she climb out through the bathroom window?

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Wife is okay, she grabbed the dog and ran out of the house. This is a family friend

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Wife also stood up in court and said he wasn't trying to kill her and refused a restraining order

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She learned nothing from the recent Jared Remy murder.

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everyone smoked, and they also smoked while they pumped your gas, never saw anything explode because of it. I guess perhaps because they were outdoors with good airflow to disperse the fumes? and yes the guy in the Birds dropped a match after it burned his hand , not a butt.

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One of the biggest features of gas stations is that they are open air. It helps disperse the fumes reducing any risks of uncontrolled explosion. Otherwise, just pulling into an enclosed gas station would be a risk since your car engine is a mass of electrical connections going on and off and the very definition of a controlled explosion factory.

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He is an straight idiot for that. It is proven fact that a lit cigarette cannot lite a fire with gasoline! So what's his story going to be dummy. I swear people don't think about shit. If he would have watched MythBusters he would have knew that.

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