Fire!
Just remembered this one and it’s a “not-me-but”…

Whilst in the last year of school I went to hang around with a bunch of mates who were a bit boisterous to say the least. Let’s call them David and Matt, for that was the names their parents had given them.

We were going through the “fire and burning things” stage of life that all young boys go though and this hot Saturday looked as fine a day as any for some adolescent pyrotechnics. This being a fair few years back the petrol station attendant didn’t bat an eyelid at three spotty teenagers filling up a jerry can. We paid our £1.50 and departed back to David’s house, his parents were away for the afternoon so we wouldn’t be disturbed.

Fast forward to when we reach our destination and we now need some other container to put some of the petrol in… After rummaging around in the kitchen we find a Kia Ora orange squash bottle that’s about empty so we all polish that off (hardcore or what?) and then proceed to fill the bottle from the jerry can using the black filler nozzle that screws onto the can.

To set the scene we were filling this bottle on the back doorstep of the house outside the kitchen. The filler nozzle fitted inside the Kia Ora bottle very tightly and this was going to prove to be our doom. As I filled the bottle and it reached the top I withdrew the nozzle and the weirdest thing happened – a six foot cloud of petrol squirted up from the bottle and covered the entire door frame and surrounding brickwork. Cue astonishment and then manic laughing from Matt who then calmly produced a box of matches, lit one and threw it on the door step. The entire doorframe was then instantly alight. Cue panic shutting of doors flapping around etc… The fire lasted for about a minute and I believe that Matt lost some hair and the door needed re-painting. All the neighbours saw it and those two guys got in a shit load of trouble. Somehow I was not involved as far as the parents were concerned.

I’m still not sure what caused the petrol to squirt up like that. It could have been something to do with the tight fitting and possibly squeezing the Kia Ora bottle or some other physics phenomenon. It was an impressive fire to say the least but talk about a stupid thing to do.
(SillyMoo, Thu 27 Dec 2007, 16:07, 1 reply)

yeah, physics..
If you are trying to replace the air in a bottle with liquid, but you haven't given the air a way to escape, then the air builds up pressure to decrease its volume. When you finally gave it an opening, the high pressure contents escaped as quickly as possible.
(flutiki, Thu 27 Dec 2007, 19:27, closed)