Idiot in Hummer filled 5 gas cans expecting shortages. Put them in his car and lit up a cigarette

[Effete Snob]

18. A cigarette won't ignite gasoline fumes

It's not in the story because it is bullshit.

It's something people believe, but it simply isn't true.

Obviously smoking around gasoline is not a good idea, but a lit cigarette doesn't burn hot enough to ignite gasoline vapor.

https://mythresults.com/special7

It is possible to ignite a pool of gasoline using only a cigarette.
PARTLY PLAUSIBLE

A cigarette has the potential to light a pool of gasoline but just doesn’t have enough sustained heat. Gas ignites between 500 °F and 540 °F, the cigarette at its hottest was between 450 °F and 500 °F but only when it was actually being smoked. An ignition is very improbable.


https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-013-0380-3

Fire investigators regularly evaluate available fuels and potential ignition sources to determine the cause of a fire. This work examined the propensity of lit cigarettes to ignite gasoline vapors, expanding on previous work to include a large number of trials and a wide range of test conditions. Experiments were conducted exposing lit cigarettes, both at idle and under draw, to gasoline vapors in various configurations including pools/pans of gasoline, gasoline on textile substrates (clothing), and sprays of gasoline. Five major brands of commercially-manufactured tobacco cigarettes were tested. The experiments conducted for this study consisted of 70 distinct tests involving a total of 723 cigarettes and over 4,500 instances of exposure of a lit cigarette to ignitable concentrations of gasoline vapor in air. There were no instances of the ignition of gasoline vapors from the exposure of those vapors to a lit tobacco cigarette during any of the experiments.