PEOPLE tried to fill plastic water bottles with petrol as drivers yesterday continued to ignore appeals not to panic buy during the fuel crisis.

Petrol stations across the county continued to run dry as motorists kept topping up despite Government pleas to stop the run on fuel stocks and a pledge from the Unite union it would not call a strike of tanker drivers over Easter.

A supervisor at the BP Hartwell petrol station in Botley said she had to stop some people filling bottles – as it emerged a woman in York suffered 40 per cent burns when petrol she was decanting in her kitchen caught light.

The independent retailers’ group RMI Petrol said nationally the demand for petrol rose 172 per cent on Thursday and 77 per cent for diesel.

The supervisor at Hartwell said: “People have been filling up jerry cans. Some even tried to use plastic bottles. Of course we stopped that however, but people do try.

“People are being ridiculous, but I don’t think you can stop them. They do get aggressive on the forecourt.

“I’ve been doing this job for 28 years – it’s amazing how people behave. We had a couple of ladies having a go at each other.

“I think they should stop panic buying, it’s ridiculous.”

Even supermarket giants such as Tesco in Cowley and Asda in Wheatley had to close yesterday.

A Tesco customer service spokesman at Cowley said: “It’s very busy. It’s closed until seven o’clock this evening and then we have got another delivery. We are completely out of fuel.”

An Asda counterpart added yesterday: “If anything I think (the panic) is getting a bit worse. We closed at half two today. Yesterday we closed early as well, but not this early.

“Queues were from our petrol station up to the car park. I think people have just overreacted.

“The strike has not even come into force yet.”

The crisis was sparked by a threat from Unite drivers to strike over working conditions, hours, holiday and pay but the Government was blamed for stoking panic by advising drivers to keep their tanks topped up.

Yesterday, EU rules limiting tanker drivers to nine hours on the road each day were relaxed to 11 hours in a bid to try to resupply more forecourts.

One driver complained he saw Tesco delivery vans fill up at the supermarket’s Abingdon filling station despite pumps being closed off to the public.

Father-of-two Mark Stewart, from Wootton, said staff told him diesel was reserved for emergency services vehicles. But he then saw two delivery vans fill up.

Tesco spokesman Elizabeth Roberts said: “We are working hard to meet the needs of all our customers, both those buying fuel and people who have ordered home deliveries.”