Fuel Walker riding mower catches fire

elifire

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I'm the safety director for a landscape company. One of our mowers was filling his Walker 48 inch riding mowers with gas when it caught fire.
No one was hurt but the mower was destroyed. Any thoughts on how it could have happened?
 

RDA.Lawns

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Was the mower running or hot? If so a small amount of gas could have landed on hot exhaust. Or possibly static electricity.
 

bertsmobile1

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Firstly, only gasses can burn so unless the fuel can was very hot or the operator spilt fuel everywhere there should have been no way for gas vapours to happen.
Note that the filler cap on Walkers is on the right side ( sitting on the mower ) and the exhaust is on the left so there is no chance of fuel accidentially landing on a not exhaust and vapourising.
The filler cap & fuel tank are outside the engine bay and the filler cap on most modles is lower than the head and thus lower then the hot exhaust pipe.

Next normal fuel needs an ignition source, a spark , a flame or something glowing red hot, none of these are likely to have been happening during a refuling if the engine was turned off.

If it happened immediately after refuling then it could have been due to a split fuel line dribbling fuel inside the engine bay being ignited by sparks from the starter motor.

Have a good look at your parts breakdown for confirnmation where all the bits are located. Got to be one of the safests layouts around in regards to refuling.
 
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