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A man who caused a small explosion by playing with his cigarette lighter while filling up his car could have caused "life-threatening" injuries and a major incident, say firefighters.
Police are looking for witnesses and reviewing CCTV footage of a scary incident a fortnight ago that could have turned into a major disaster. And firefighters have condemned the behaviour, with firefighters Station Commander Richard Liron saying "it was unimaginable foolishness that could have led to a major incident".
Mr Liron praised the alertness of the well-trained staff at the Costcutter Garage in Kensington Place who shut off the pump and raced outside with an extinguisher when they realised what was going on.
"This was a really, really serious incident," said Mr Liron. "This could quite easily have led to serious burns and worse, this is life-threatening behaviour.
"The fire service and the police are trying to understand this incident, but the reasons for it are still not apparent."
Police say that between 8.50 pm and 9.10 pm on Thursday 29 January, a man and a woman in a blue Peugeot 106 pulled up to the Costcutter Garage in Kensington Place. The woman began to fill up the car, but she and the man had an argument, before he moved her out of the way and took over the petrol nozzle.
Police say that “shortly after, the male has used a cigarette lighter which caused a small explosion of fire”. The staff managed to shut down the fuel supply to the pump before anything went wrong, and no major damage was caused.
Officers are understood to have reviewed CCTV footage, but are hoping to hear from witnesses, including one man who they think saw everything that happened.
The witness that they are looking for is a man with grey hair, a black jacket and denim jeans who was walking a small dog across the petrol forecourt at the time of the incident.
Anyone with any information is being asked to contact the police on 612612, or the anonymous Crimestoppers number on 0800 555111.
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