New risk fac­tors iden­ti­fied for start­ing fires at gas sta­tions: being skinny, female.

Fire experts said that women are more often involved in sta­tic elec­tric­ity fires than men. They said women are more likely to return to their cars dur­ing fuel­ing to escape the cold—most of the fires occur in cold, dry weather—or tend to a child. More­over, their stock­ings are more likely to col­lect an elec­tro­sta­tic charge.

A slim woman like Mrs. Shager is typ­i­cal in these cases, said Robert Renkes, an exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of the Petro­leum Equip­ment Insti­tute. Mr. Renkes ana­lyzed reports of the 170 sta­tic elec­tric­ity service-station fires from 1992 to 2006. Seventy-eight per­cent of the vic­tims were female, he said, “and they were skinny.” He said that heav­ier peo­ple, and men in gen­eral, are more likely to hoist them­selves out by grasp­ing the car door, thus ground­ing any charge they may be car­ry­ing before reach­ing for the noz­zle.“Sta­tic Elec­tric­ity Fires Are a Peril at the Pump,” The New York Times, July 27, 2008