IF you think gas prices are scary, consider a far worse fright that Kelly Shager of Lynchburg, Va., got at a gas pump. Eight months ago, Mrs. Shager drove her 1999 Ford Ranger to a self-service gas station, engaged the nozzle’s hold-open clip to have it fill automatically, then sat in her vehicle.

When the tank was full, she slid out and reached for the nozzle. Touching it, she felt a shock.

“Then fire kind of came out of the tank,” she said.

Mrs. Shager ran into the station’s convenience store for a fire extinguisher, but flames were already leaping over her truck. By the time firefighters controlled the blaze, the pickup was a charred ruin.

According to Greg Wormser, the Lynchburg fire marshal, the fire was ignited by an electrostatic charge that had collected on Mrs. Shager as she sat in the truck. When she reached for the nozzle, the charge grounded, igniting the gas vapors around the pump.