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One article says "petrol", and two others quote witnesses saying "petrol", yet most sources say "oil spill". It would be much appreciated if someone familiar with Kenya could explain what "petrol" generally means and what sort of fuel their vehicles most usually run on (since it does vary somewhat between countries). On a related point, we should clarify whether the people died essentially because the truck exploded, as opposed to standing in a slick that caught on fire. Understanding the fuel would help us to understand how probable an explosion or fire would be. (The underlying theme to these macabre questions is one of trying to understand whether these people deliberately took a very severe risk out of desperation, or if the properties of the fuel or explosion might have somehow been surprising) Wnt (talk) 18:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good question. Cars and motorcycles don't run on oil (petroleum), and there are no refineries in Molo, so there's no good explanation why the truck would be carrying unrefined petroleum. It has to be petrol/gasoline. However, an official confirmation is needed.
Most victims' bodies are charred, suggesting a fire, not an explosion.
As for taking a risk out of desperation - do you think this kind of thing could have happened in your home town, no matter how bad gasoline shortages? And would your local media "berate the government for poor safety standards" in response to such an incident? --Itinerant1 (talk) 18:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Naturally it was some kind of volatile hydrocarbon, 99% likely it is gasoline, otherwise it would not have produced enough vapours to catch fire and in turn result in a fuel/air explosion. [...] T.R. 87.59.78.8 (talk) 21:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the bigoted language from your post. Kablammo (talk) 22:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To be precise, alternatives to gasoline include diesel fuel (which is only legally distinguished from home heating oil in the U.S.) and whatever they use in Fiji, which I've seen some call "Rough high sulfur bunker oil" but I can't tell you if that's truth. But really, I can picture that if a truck loaded with diesel crashed and started leaking a steady stream of diesel in a student neighborhood or a poor neighborhood in a city like Chicago, that some people might grab jerrycans and try to collect some. "Just to help protect the environment", of course. ;) But probably not gasoline, because everyone expects that to blow up! Which is why I wondered if there's something that leads to confusion about the properties of this fuel. Wnt (talk) 05:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
News reports now refer to it as "petrol" or (in the US) "gasoline". This article is misnamed, and "ignition" is not really too descriptive of the event. Perhaps 2009 Molo petrol fire? Kablammo (talk) 22:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
