Blitz made gas cans that were, in my opinion, of mediocre efficacy. However, they were cheap, widely available, and came in various sizes….I have a bunch of 1-gallon and 2-gallon containers in case I need to trade off some small amounts of fuel.
If you wanna grab a few before they shut the doors, you might wanna get going on that. It’ll be interesting to see whats left in the market since Scepter sorta dropped outta that market. For the record, my favorites are the ‘euro’-style cans. (I am told that the Scepter water cans these days are the same as the fuel cans, just marked differently. Probably different gaskets or something.)
The article zays Blitz is filing Chapter 11, but it also says they’re closing their doors. I suppose it’s possible that Blitz will go Chapter 11, reorganize, and come back as Blitz USA or some similar rebranding….but it’s also possible they’ll file for Chapter 11, get liquidated, and be consigned to the dustbin of history. So…play it safe, and buy whatever youre lacking at the moment.
Edited to add: Explosion of lawsuits against gas can maker
I’m unclear….what does a reasonable person expect is going to happen when you pour a flammable liquid, from a container full of flammable liquid, onto a campfire? This is why we can’t have nice things.
I HATE every Blitz container I have. I can NEVER pour any fuel into ANY other vessel or fuel tank, without fuel spilling/spattering elsewhere. Fueling my lawn mower is downright impossible! A freind once told me, the nozzle design with the vent inside the spout, was designed to conform to newer California standards (to minimize vapors escaping into the ecosphere… or something). However, I believe I have caused more ground polution, and of course, subsequent vapor escape, than ever before. I have had no trouble with the containers themselves; none ever broke or split, and even though they became pretty cruddy in the Tampa humidity, the cleaned up very nice with Olympic Deck wash. It’s those POS spouts! I have twenty of them, because I could no longer get the ones made by Gott.
The reason Sceptor switched to making just water containers may have had a lot to do with the whole “costs of product liability” thing that put Blitz out of business. It’s got to be substantially cheaper to buy product liability insurance when your core business is making water jugs, rather than something that can easily kill people when mishandled or used by a nitwit who doesn’t understand the principles of combustion. It wouldn’t entirely shock me if the product were the exact same right down to the gasket. …Though one would be wise to confirm that before using your “water jug” to store fuel.
It sounds like a lack of common sense to me .
My grand Dad used to keep and open can of gas around the shop to douse cigarettes with. On first blush sounds pretty dumb, but it was the fumes that are flammable, not the liquid itself.
As to pouring gas into a fire, that is a darwin moment and no liability should be implied on the container. But then, I am not a lawyer.
integrator:
Those CA EPA standards went into effect about 10 yrs ago. And you are right, they cause more spillage than the original design. Before, it was fairly rare to see a gas can on the side of a CA freeway. Now, it is rare to be out of sight of one tossed on the shoulder. People get pissed when it takes ten minutes to empty a 1 gal can. They end up taking off the spout and pouring it directly. Sometimes they improvise a funnel, but it doesn’t matter, gas hits the ground every time one of those cans are used. And then they toss it away, because it was such a piece of shit to use. And the gas that is left (there is always some left) also reaches the ground/air when it gets run over. Plus, it has no cap on it now. Really stupid idea/design. This is what you get when some govt bureaucrat designs something environmentally “friendly”. They have no real world experience to guide them, and no concept of human nature. And they never re-visit a decision to assess it’s impact. They just continue on in their closed little world where “good intentions” are paramount, and results play second fiddle.