The Region - News from July 28, 1986

The 31-year-old driver of a fuel oil truck was burned over 25% of his body after he flicked his cigarette lighter so he could see inside the tanker, fire officials said. The resulting explosion blew the driver, Arthur Thomas, of Compton, off the top of the truck, which he had been filling at an Atlantic Oil Co. facility in Signal Hill. Thomas was in fair condition at Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach with second- and third-degree burns and a fractured right ankle.