hazards associated with fuels

• toxicity


  some fuels toxic to humans, alcohol methanol example, as little as 10cm3 can attack cns and may lead to blindness, coma or even death
• toxicity


  methylated spirit is mainly ethanol, but contains small amount of methanol, used in industry as solvent or cleaning agent and as fuel in some camping stoves
• flammability


  need to be able to ignite fuels to burn them, many fuels are flammable, and containers of fuels need to display appropriate hazard symbol and warning of flammability, careless use causes fires
• risk of explosion


  large quantity of gaseous fuel or vapour from liquid fuel is released into air, a spark is likely to cause an explosion