Firefighters and Shell Unite in Prevention Campaign
The Cuerpo de Bomberos (firefighters) and the Shell company have teamed up in an education campaign for both drivers and workers of gasoline stations, to teach them the safety measures in the event of an emergency.

Roberto Coto, general manager of Shell Costa Rica, said it has been difficult to have customers turn off their engines or cellular phones while gassing up, or that gasoline should only be carried in a specialized container and not any bottle of plastic container, as is the case many times now.

In the event of an emergency, each gas station personnel has a specific role to play to minimize the emergency. One person should be pressing the emergency shut off button, another should be calling 911 and another to evacuate customers from the station.

Héctor Chaves, director of the Cuerpo de Bomberos, added that the campaign is part of a protocol the fire department developed following the tragedy at the Shell station in Escazú last October, where two young children died trapped in a vehicle.

The idea, said Chaves, is that all gasoline station attendants in the country know what should be done in an emergency, how to act and know the behaviour of the flammable product.

Chaves said that in the coming months they will have a gasoline station simulator in the Academia de Bomberos (fire fighters academy) that will recreate spills and test skills in the event of an emergency.

Editor's note: To test the Shell regulations on gasoline containers, we tried to fill a "pichinga" - plastic container previously used to hold disinfectant.

The Shell attendants at the Pavas station would not fill it, telling us that we need to use the special container, of which they were sold out.

We did, however, fill "our" container at a gas station on kilometre to west,  across from the U.S. Embassy, with no problem.