Exploding Butane Lighter
San Francisco columnist Herb Caen summarized the story in his column on December 21, 1979:
“It came to me on official-looking U.S. Dept. of Transportation stationary, but it’s a hoax. I mean the story that two Union Pacific welders were killed when a spark ignited their butane lighters which exploded “with the force of three dynamite sticks.” Sighs UP Flack Al Krieg: “That story swept the country the past month but we have no record of such an accident. It keeps popping up everywhere. Some myths die hard.”
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, fliers and bogus warnings circulated describing this alleged incident that involves welders, usually those from Union Pacific. The entire story was fictional but problems arose with the same lighters in the mid-1980s. 1986 marked the first case against a butane lighter manufacturer which went to trial and resulted in a three million dollar settlement against the company. These problems were not like the urban legend but were the result of the flare-ups of lighters that had failed to extinguish.
(Source: Brunvand, Jan H. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. 2001.)
