text: a burning cigarette is tossed into a bowl of 87 octane gasoline.  a) boom or b) extinguished ? please..  please... nobody experiment before answering!  question is based on a scene i saw in a movie.  guy drops a cig in a car's gas tank and it explodes.  i started thinking  nahhhh...  needs a spark or an open flame to make that happen extinguished.  for full information on this read the last edition of new scientist, they have a large article on new discoveries in arson research.  one of them is that a cigarette thrown into petrol/gasoline doesn't stay hot for long enough to cause combustion.