Five years ago, a friend of mine was putting the finishing touches on his restored Shelby GT500 Mustang. He sold it, and was going to deliver it to the guy the following day. Had it on the lift in his shop to replace the fuel tank sending unit. Spilled some gas on the floor. The bay door directly behind the lift was open. Like he'd done a million times over a 20 year period, he walked over to his electric power washer and flipped it on to wash the gas out the back door.
As soon as he hit the switch, the spark inside the contact ignighted the gas fumes, blowing him out the shop door.
The fire ran up the trail of gas into the tank, exploding the tank. The ceiling of the warehouse caught fire, and it looked like the inside of an oven. The shop didn't burn to the ground though. The Mustang was a total loss--body was bent from the heat, roof caved in, front fiberglass melted, wheels melted, quarters caved in...saved the long block, the auto trans and the differential.
Lost four more cars, too.
All from less than a gallon of gas on the floor.
Get a plastic gas can, dump the gas into it, and if you can't get rid of it in a bonfire, call the local garbage dump and find out how to deliver hazard materials to them. Any garbage dump is set up to take old thinner, paint and other flammables.
And if you do a bonfire with it, be sure you're not standing in a depression when you light it--the fumes will collect in a depression, and make a nice big flash. When my dad was a volunteer fireman 20 years ago, another volunteer fireman set himself on fire by using gasoline to light a pile of leaves and branches. had them all in a depression in his back yard. Stood in the depression, struck the match, tossed it and was surrounded by flames. Burned him pretty bad.
Respect old gas.
-Brad
