In article ,
Jim Elbrecht wrote:


The pilot, however, is an open flame. It would definitely be an
unusual circumstance, but potentially devastating, if there was a gas
leak.

From 9+ years in the fire service (albeit 20+ years ago), my personal
preference for a gas leak occurring would be while I was on vacation.
Unless turning off the water will increase the likelihood of a gas leak,
I view the gas leak as a random event with much lower odds that it would
occur. For every gas leak explosion, there is probably 10 water heaters
that break. The odds are even higher if you focus only on water heaters
(and ignore the meters which tend to be high level offender, furnaces,
etc.).



I'd be shutting off gas in my house before water if I was going to be
gone for a great length of time.

This is just a couple weeks.