The importance of handling gas bottles with extreme caution and care has been highlighted yet again by a frightening accident in New Zealand.
A man was badly injured when a 9kg gas bottle exploded at the Glendhu Bay camping ground on the south island, leaving him with burns to his face, arms and legs. Quick-thinking fellow campers put the man in the waters of nearby Lake Wanaka until emergency services arrived and took him away to hospital.
A camper who witnessed the incident told the Southland Times newspaper that the man was trying to put the connection back on a gas bottle that had gas squirting out of it when it exploded. ”Something must have caused it to ignite when he was trying to put the connection back on,” the woman said.
The explosion apparently sparked a significant fire which, at one stage, threatened to spread to other campsites. Campers were able to douse the area with water and contain the blaze until firefighters arrived. There is no word yet on the injured man’s condition.
Have you ever had a gas bottle mishap? How careful are you when handling gas bottles? Comment below.
Two years ago I bought a 9 kg gas bottle from Melton Had it filled and put it in my trailer ready for a trip in a few days….On the second Day I smelt gas around the trailer It was leaking A new bottle….K Mart replaced the bottle and reimbursed me the money for the gas That was fine…The new bottle after a few refills started to leak as well..This was two years after the first one I threw it away and Told K Mart to stop buying them in from China…No response
Gas bottles, or rather the gas inside them is one of the most dangerous products a camper or caravanner will use and it is often very misunderstood.
We all know that gas is explosive but it has other just as dangerous properties too.
Did you also know that LPG has no smell and is not poisonous?. The odour we smell is simply added during production so a leak will become readily noticable, and you can sniff LPG all day and it wont hurt you. What it does do however is it displaces oxygen, in doing so it can suffocate and kill. All caravans are designed with ventilation to allow any leaked gas to dissipate, it might be via special vents installed low down in the walls or floor but more than likely it will be through the door, for this reason door ventilators should never be blocked to stop the ingress of draughts or dust, Few people know that to purposefully block ventilators on a vehicle registered to carry gas, LPG or CNG, is illegal in all Australian states and territories.
Here is an occurance which can and has happened, a caravan fridge is running on gas, a sudden wind gust extinguishes the pilot flame, or, a gas cooking ring has not been fully shut, the gas leaks into the caravan and because the door vents have been blocked the ‘van fills with gas, ….its heavier than air so it slowly forces the air up and out the top vents in the caravan, all vans have upper vents of some sort, soon all the oxygen has gone, what do you think will happen to anyone sleeping in the ‘van?….oh wait you say, a 9kg bottle is not going to full up a caravan is it??..actually yes it is, LPG is highly compressed and will expand in excess of 300 times when released into the atmoshpere.
A minor correction to my comments regarding the danger of being suffocated by LPG, I stated that LPG will expand in excess of 300 times when released into the atmosphere, I should have stated…in excess of 200 times….in fact 270 times to be exact.
read an interesting article,which stated there will be more incidents of faults with gas bottles due to chinese manufactured steel being used in ones sold in places like K Mart and other major retailers. sadly the australian manufactured manchester tanks are very hard to come by. even though being produced in Euchuca.