As we carefully continue to crawl out of our pandemic underground bunkers and get back to normal, summer in South Louisiana is about to be in full swing, heat and all. I'd be willing to bet that right now you probably have a bottle of hand sanitizer in your vehicle. Can it really blow up in your car from high temperatures? Here's what we found out...

Obviously, the main ingredient in hand sanitizer is alcohol. Equally as obvious, alcohol is extremely flammable. During the summer months in South Louisiana, we all know how oppressive and dangerously hot the inside of our vehicles can get. Hot enough to explode?

Can Hand Sanitizer Catch Fire in a Hot Car?

Well, it's possible but not probable.

In a video posted to YouTube by 12 News, a recent study in Brazil shows the temperature inside of a vehicle would need to reach 572 degrees in order for a bottle of hand sanitizer to explode.

A study by Arizona State University shows the heat inside of a vehicle at the peak of Arizona Summer rose to a maximum temperature of 160 degrees.

In Louisiana, we also have humidity to deal with, but studies show the average peak summertime temperature inside of vehicles in Louisiana tops out at 120 degrees according to KPLC.com.

As I'm sure you'll remember, last summer a cautionary photo went viral on Whatsapp and eventually found its way onto a fire department's Facebook page. The picture reportedly showed the aftermath of a hand sanitizer bottle exploding in a hot car.

Maybe the sanitizer was homemade and contained more alcohol than what's normally found in store-bought hand sanitizer, I don't know.

So, yes. Technically hand sanitizer can explode in your car because of the heat in the summer months if you parked your car inside of a burning parking garage.

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