NBC News  (12/4, Myers, Gardella, 6.79M) reports that  red plastic portable gasoline containers, which are sold throughout the US, “pose a rare but real explosion hazard many Americans may not know about,” an NBC News investigation has found. NBC explains that US consumers buy about 20 million gas cans annually, “and there are more than 100 million plastic gas cans currently in circulation in the U.S., according to industry estimates,” but laboratory tests “indicate that under certain limited conditions, gas vapor mixtures can explode inside those cans and cause significant injury. At the request of NBC News, the federal government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission analyzed incident and injury databases and counted at least 11 reported deaths and 1,200 emergency room visits involving gas can explosions during the pouring of gasoline since 1998.” The results “show the conditions under which so-called ‘flashback’ explosions inside the cans are possible.” NBC notes that attorneys “have filed at least 80 lawsuits during the past two decades on behalf of individuals injured in alleged gas can explosions.”