kengr

Back in 1973 I picked up an obsolete textbook that had been for the fire safety course at the Community College I was going to. It was a combo of 3 or 4 different manuals. One about the hazard diamonds, one about hazardous chemical reactions, and I don't recall the others.

The hazardous reactions one was a bunch of cautionary tales relating incidents where seemingly minor "oops" led to large problems.

One was about the time somebody *thought* a tanker truck's tank was mild steel. And filled it with concentrated NaOH solution. Turns out it was aluminum. Which is bad news.

Exposed to strong bases aluminum (and titanium and several other metal) lose the tough oxide coat. Which leaves the actual metal exposed to the water in the solution. Which it happily reacts with, producing hydrogen, and lots of heat.

So the tanker caught on fire!