What are the Hazards of Refuelling a car,plane,etc?

Question

Im doing a physics topic about Electrostatics so i think it is something to do with that, But there is not a great deal about it in simple terms!

Answer 1

OK, here's a simple explanation:

Whenever you have a liquid exposed to the open air, some of it will evaporate. With gasoline and aviation fuel, those fumes are extremely combustible: gasoline fumes are far more volatile and sensitive to sparks/flames than gasoline itself is (and gasoline lights easily).

So, while you're filling your car or plane up, a little bit of that fuel evaporates, and may come back out of the tank. If an electrostatic spark lights off the fumes, the resulting explosive flame can go back into the tank or into the fuel line - touching off an even larger explosion.

The odds are not necessarily great that an explosion will occur, but even if it only happens 1 in 10,000 times, it would be extremely unfortunate if you're standing around the 1 time that a gas station blows up because of it.