Plastic + Fire = ?
Last year, me and a few mates were having a bbq, as you do.

Since we were students, and not actually having a proper bbq or fireplace, we had bought some of those nifty pre-prepared tinfoil/charcoal trays. Took them outside, put them on a table, lit them up, slapped on a few burgers and we're all go, right?

You've probably already spotted the mistake. Yep, it was a plastic table too. It was only when one of the girls started yelling that our table "has a willy!" that we realised that one of the trays had burnt straight through, leaving a 30cm long tube in the centre of the table, before the plastic finallly gave way.
(nancyboy Oooh that tickles, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 21:58, Reply)

I'm a twat.
So, I like to burn things, yes I do... And when my urge to burn got too bad, i would simply fill a bowl which i had hidden in my room with paper and spray aerosol on it and VOOM up it would go. One day, I had an urge, so I set it all up, and lit it, when, about 5 seconds later, I was called downstairs, now not even I am stupid enough to leave a fire unattended, so I throw my duvet on the fire to dampen it.

Big mistake.

Upon going back a few minutes later, I found the entire duvet to be on fire, and my bed was pretty much on the brink of catching light to, so I do what everyone in my position did, I ripped the duvet off the bed and started stamping out the flames, the only problem being, that the flames were too big, and i got some pretty nasty burns.

In the end, my mum smelt burning, ran in and saw what was happening, so she ran to the bathroom and filled everything she could find with water, and successfully put out the flames. Needless to say she was pissed, and in the resulting torrent of abuse she called me, among other things "Stupid Cunt" "You fucking idiot" and my favourite "You goddamn fucking pillock!"

I was banned from going out for 2 months...and you know what, I still play with fire now :)
( B.T., Sun 6 Nov 2005, 20:47, Reply)

Human Candle
Back in Grade 7, during summer holidays, I was riding home from my cousin's house. I had cut through the park and saw this kid that was in my class standing over a concrete pad in an unusual manner, so I stopped to investigate. As I approached, I noticed that he was playing with a box of matches. He lit a book of matches, threw it on the concrete, and then proceeded to pour some methyl alcohol onto the flaming matches. At first, the fire grew larger, but then seemed to die out. Now remember for a moment, that methanol flames are almost invisible. So the poor bastard goes ahead an pours the rest of the bottle onto the matchbook. Bad move. A large woosh and the boy's entire cranium is engulfed in flame, seemingly eminating from his collar. Absolute horror. He was running about frantically, and I'm there shouting for him to drop and roll to extinguish the flame, but I'm not sure he could hear me. After what seemed to be 2 minutes, he dove onto a gravel path and ground his face into the rocky surface, and eventually got the fire out. He was so panicked that he wouldn't go home for fear that his mum would go apeshit and give him a good beating, so he followed me home, where my neighbours took him to the hospital.

The next day I saw him, and his entire face was covered in white blisters, and tinged soot-black. There wasn't much scarring in the end. Lucky bastard.

5 years later in high school, his twin brother pulled an equally stupid stunt with a Zippo, but that wasn't very spectacular, or noteworthy.
( Hosehead, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 20:46, Reply)

demo
check out this fool giving a "safety demonstration". the money shot is about 4 mins in, the start is quite dull.
www.quickplace.com.au/afc/HC_Safety_Demonstration_128Kbps.wmv
(unciebana It's good, but it's not right., Sun 6 Nov 2005, 19:27, Reply)

Not a fire, but bloody hot
As I write this I currently have a bad back from being unable to stand-up properly, am holding my arm protectively across my stomach and am feeling slightly light headed due to being recently being unable to remember what the time was when I last took an antibiotic/paracetamol/ibuprofen and deciding it must be time for some more.

And no im not pregnant (bloody hope not anyway, mainly because im a bloke), rather I have an almost perfect shape of an iron imprinted on my chest. The reason I say almost, rather than exactly, perfect is that most of it is an open, bloody, puss-oozing wound.

The moral of this tale is that irons get fucking hot. And, more importantly, on no account should you EVER f#ck around with them, even after consuming a crate of carling export first. Perhaps especially after consuming a crate of carling. But failing this, you should never, ever, ever hit someone with an iron that has been plugged in long enough to get up to its normal sun-like operating temperature, because
1- this is not a nice thing to do, and
2- if they then get hold of the iron your in trouble.

Still I can see the funny side now, the doctor tells me it is probably going to scar and I will have a ‘Morphy Richards 40700 Comfigrip professional’ brand for the rest of my life... bugger

And to add insult to injury, not only is my ‘friends’ burn almost completely healed but the doctors at A&E asked him if he would like to make a complaint to the police about me, and the melon-headed, nob-jockey actually considered it.


[add own ironing board stomach joke here, ive heard them all already and none of them are funny]
(Digstar fu#king loves biscuits, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 19:25, Reply)

More Chemistry Shenanigans
I wasn't present to witness this particular incident, but was told it by my chemistry teacher having enquired after the new burn mark on one of the sockets next to the desk in the lab. It turns out a second year class was using the bunsen burners for an experiment, but the two girls working at that desk hadn't been able to light theirs. Try, try as they might, it remained stubbornly out.

Unbeknownst to them, the tube had come disconnected from the gas tap and gas was leaking out to form an invisible yet highly inflammable cloud in the area round the tap. One of the girls incautiously waved a lit splint through the cloud whilst examining the burner again and... one singed desk, one shocked girl, two less eyebrows than there had been moments before.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:35, Reply)

good party
Pretty memorable firework party last year. A mate of mine who's a postgrad chemist at Oxford brought along 10g of nitro-glycerine he had whipped up in the lab that morning and blew it up under a bush, creating a very impressive bang, a small crater, and a mildly vaporised plant.
Also one of the rockets managed to get stuck in the launching tube, making it wheee merrily until it expoloded, spectaculaly, at ground level. Fantastic. Fireworks are much more fun close up.
(donksta, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:30, Reply)

What a twunt
I work in a local nightclub in the town i live in
(Barrow-In-Furness), it was a saturday night and was filling up with punters and scary old women too that wanted some fun(anyways thats another story hee hee) I was behind my bar when a lad came up with two women in tow and ordered me to get him a Sambuca, during the time it took to get the drink i could hear him boasting to the lasses about how good he was basically(Twunt) i set the drink down and took the money on my return with the change he wanted it lighting so i did the deed with my lighter he raised it to his mouth and drank it. Unfortunatly for him he spilt some over his face and shirt which was on fire, so theres me throwing the contents of the half melted ice bucket over him to extinguish the flames and these two ladies laughing there titties off at him. Funny i havent seem him back in since then.

Phew thats my cherry popped im off to have a fag
(Factorypilot This,Now,Before,After, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:26, Reply)

or, i just remembered
GCSE chemistry lesson involving a practical producing up hydrogen from hydrochloric acid. it was meant to come out of a plastic tube and into another container to be collected. i thought 'why not apply a match to the end of the tube and create a flamethrower?'. It exploded enthusiastically, hurling a glass jar across the classroom before it hit my teacher's leg and shattered...
(flynntoff, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:23, Reply)

it seemed like
such a good idea to use lighter fluid and aerosols and whatnot to spell a message on the lawn of churchill hall (uni, bit of a rivalry, quite pissed) until i managed to drop a can of squirty lighter fluid into quite a lively blaze. the reulting bang set my trousers on fire and made our presence quite obvious to security types... we had to run very fast. with my trousers still on fire. my leg is still a bit of a funny colour..
(flynntoff, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:17, Reply)

Chemistry Science lessons were never so enLIGHTening.
Back at school, I was taken part in an experiment involving the combustion of lame chemicals in testtubes. Instead of doing this properly, I was fixated with the roaring flame so much so that I kept edging closer and closer towards it. Eventually I got so close that my hair ignited and I burnt off my eyebrows in the process.

If I hadn't been wearing my safety glasses, I'd have felt the heat and not burned myself. And they call them "safety glasses".
(Bodster, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:12, Reply)

One from last night - alcohol and fireworks don't mix
I was sitting up at Primrose Hill with the missus and a few friends when we saw off to one side some people running away from a fizzing firework. My friend Jo dived out of the way, leaving me saying "Is that pointed at us?"

The thing exploded pointing straight at me. I managed to dive under my jacket and most of the burning stuff bounced off my jacket and trainers. However, I now know that should I get caught in an explosion my last words will be "Fucking hell!"
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 16:09, Reply)

When you play with ladies you play with FIRE!
Every office has a miserable old cow. Ours is called Wendy. Not only is she miserable (Number of years worked there - 10. Number of smiles sighted - 0) but because of her size and the colour of her hair she contrives to look eerily like the Honey Monster from the Sugar Puffs box.

Anyhow there was a team meeting called which, due to a badly timed cigarette break, I arrived late for. As I entered I quickly scanned the room for Wendy for the simple reason that any team meeting she's present for will always last twice as long as she rattles of a list of petty complaints. I had a lot of work on and needed to get back so was very happy when I didn't see her. As soon as I'm settled the meeting continues, apparently our fire safety certificate was being renewed so everyone was being asked if they could think of anything the management should be made aware of to put right before the inspection.

Being the witty gent I am I instantly quipped "I think Wendy might constitute a fire hazard."

Everyone loves a good joke at the miserable buggers expense but this time the howls of laughter were absent. Replaced, instead, by one person nervously laughing and then badly trying to pretend she was coughing. My first reaction was that they didn't get it and I was about to add "Cause she's so huge, see? Couldn't get past her in an emergency see?" but luckily my boss caught my eye with a look of unholy panic. I twigged what was going on at roughly the same time I heard a very pointed cough from my left. Turning in horror Wendy leant forward and seemed to magically appear from behind two other ladies.

Shit.

My mind whirled in panic and I desperately groped for some way out of the situation. Before I even knew what was happening my mouth started speaking on its own. Sounding very unsure of itself it asked Wendy "Because you're just too damn hot?"

Wendy raised her eyebrows in shock. In the background I could hear everybody laughing but for me time froze. To be honest I really wish it still was, because after a terrifying amount of time she dropped me a wink and smiled shyly. I could only madly grin back at her in blind panic. When the laughter died down the meeting resumed as normal.

Nice save Gleeballs. Nice.

Since then she's started brushing past me in corridors. She handed me a file the other day and gently gripped my arm, smiling as she did so. Goddamn you fire safety! The Honey Monster is going to rape me! For the love of god help me!
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 6 Nov 2005, 15:51, Reply)

Scout pyros
Many moons ago on a scout camp, no leaders, just me as PL. Linnet Clough I think, in Cheshire was the location. We were one of only two tents in a vast field. There was a huge, and I mean - Shire Horse-huge horsecart - used for moving the half barrels (used for fires, couldnt use the ground) and X frames around the field. It took four of us to get it out of its resting position (on its 'back', arms way up in the air), load it and get the barrel to our tent.

At the end of the weekend, we were to to return the barrel, x frames & cart back to their original location.

Fuck that. We were camped next to a rather pleasingly sloped 'chasm'. First the x frames - metal. Pretty much inflammable. Watching them take out a few trees on the way down was good.

Next the cart, with barrel (still full of embers) on top and seriously healthy dose of lighter fluid.

The two ton flaming cart started down the hill with frightening acceleration. It looked like something out of an ancient war. Eventually it hit a large rock and flew in to the air, smashing to pieces as it crashed at the bottom in a series of fireballs. Brilliant.

Despite being one of only two groups staying there and the site owners having our full contact details we never heard a thing. Result.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 14:42, Reply)

Fire in the window..
I had a friend who I'd known since I was at primary school and we lived pretty close to each other, our houses were positioned so that we could each stand at our bedroom windows and talk loudly to each other, there was a largish garden separating us.

Well in the winter it was hard to see each other and his family were pretty poor so he didn't have a bedside lamp like I had to illuminate my face..what could we do? What did they do for light in the olden days? FIRE!

Nope we didn't use a candle, in our infinite wisdom at 13 years of age we decided that it would be best to syphon off some petrol from my dads lawnmower and once the sun had set Ian (my friend) could simply pour a little bit of petrol on his window sill outside and he would be illuminated for our evening chat.

Well it worked in the sense that he was illuminated. The best part was that of course the petrol being a liquid and highly volatile it didn't stay in one place, it dripped off of the window sill as a giant roaring fireball onto the open window downstairs, with cries from his mother of "Ian what are you doing" I was peeing myself at my panic stricken friend throwing cups of water down on to the melting PVC window and his mothers apparent lack of concern in her voice.

It was okay in the end, the window was extinguished and no damage other than a slightly melted and scorched window was done.
I even drew a childish drawing at the time to serve as a reminder to that hilarious night.
(monocle, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 13:55, Reply)

Easter '81, Andy B and I were mates, he lived next door to some "Chinkys"
we decided that their house was full of cats for cooking with, started vandalising their house over the week, culminated in us burning down their shed. Pre-pubescent Nazi Little Fuckers eh?
(Chopper3, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 13:23, Reply)

when I was about 12/13
I was a a friend's house and we were messing around as you do at that age. We managed to find an aerosol can containing butane for refilling lighters. One of the guys there squirted the butane into his mouth then blew it out onto a match making a huge flame flah out infront of him - like a fire breather. Then one of my other mates (I wont say his name because I know he is still embarrassed about it 12 years on) decided to have a go. He got the can and squirted it into his mouth. Then he tried to light the match and it snapped. He quickly got another one and sruck it, just has he kind of choked, making the gas come out of his nose. His whole face went up in flash leaving him with no eyebrows or hair on the front of his head. The hair that wasn't totally gone went a funny kind of purple colour too.
Oh how we laughed.
( swaza I'm bad, I'm bad. You know it. I'm bad., Sun 6 Nov 2005, 13:08, Reply)

Don't mess with lighter fluid kids!
A few years ago my mate had a non-violent 'funny turn' after swigging about twenty litres of Strongbow, and doused his garage in barbecue (spelling?) lighter fluid and set light to the bugger. White smoke everywhere, not helped by the two million watt floodlight he switched on prior to his faux-pyrotechnic demonstration. It was like something out of Apocalypse Now, nobody had a fucking clue what was happening.

Needless to say he had to explain the scorch marks on the garage to his parents when they returned from holidays.
(Fatty Thornton, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 13:04, Reply)

Paper + Lighter + Deodrant = Fun!
Until you realise that you put the paper on the carpet and it's burned straight through. It took a full half-hour to convince my parents the smell was coming from outside. The large burn area? Blamed it on the cat once I'd vigourously scrubbed the scorch-mark off with various cleaners. Ajax too, for some reason.

Who says 13-year-olds can be sensible? Family aren't letting me live it down at all. Wouldn't mind so much if they actually made decent jokes about it. *sniff*
( Iki I think my camel is dead., Sun 6 Nov 2005, 12:51, Reply)

Topical bonfire night story
our most memorable Guy Fawkes Night was when a local pub, known to be a hangout for the local bikers, somehow raised almost £1000 to spend on fireworks one year.

They didn't bother with a bonfire, but all trooped out to the car park to set all the fireworks off at around 8pm, by which time most of them were pretty well oiled (as it were). After a short while though the novelty wore off, plus it was raining, so they decided to chuck a match in the box of remaining fireworks and run indoors to watch the resulting display....

We heard the explosion from here (at least a mile away), windows were broken up and down the High Street, and three roofs caught fire (including that of the pub itself)

Sadly the brewery called time on the pub after that and it got shut down and "refurbished". Nobody at all goes there any more.
( Ptolemy the man with the silent pea, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 11:48, Reply)

Aah Aah Black Sheep
Didnt happen to me personally, but funny enough to recount...

Cut to a fancy dress party, about 6 years ago. 17-19 years olds all round. Drink is flowing and everyone is having a great time. A friend of mine has a thing about sheep (as you do), so he constructed himself a rather impressive suit made entirely of cotton wool. You can see where this is going, can't you?

No, all it took was a stray fag end, and he went up like a roman candle. The funniest thing, according to everyone at the party, was the way he went streaking around the house, screaming like a girl (in his defense, it must have hurt a bit), and covered in flames. Everntually, some guys managed to rugby tackle him to the floor and beat away most of the flames. He spent the rest of the night in the bathtub, moaning softly and being served more beer to ease the pain.
(fox_handybread, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 11:25, Reply)

Out of the mouths of babes and infants,,,
A couple of years ago I was at my mate Steve's place for a barbecue. It was the typical friends, family and lots of beer sort of thing.

Anyway, Steve was doing the usual male thing of standing over the barbecue (a very nice solid brick and metal affair) with tongs, turning burgers and sausages, when his 10-year old nephew Patrick walked up to him:

"Uncle Steve..."

"Yes, Patrick?"

"The barbecue's on fire."

"Yes, it's meant to be."

"No, it's really on fire."

At this point, we turned to see what was happening, just in time to see a smouldering plastic beer crate directly under the barbecue burst into flames, having been ignited by charcoal falling through a hole in the bottom of the barbecue.

We put it out with lager.
( finnbar has officially retired, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 10:38, Reply)

burning
I worked with a guy who had previously worked in an aluminium smelter.

He used to regale us with tales of the daft things people do when working with really hot molten metals.

One day I had jokingly enquired if he had ever seen any injuries, "'cause that thatf stuff would burn right through you..."

He went all quiet and said that the week he started there had been a fatal accident where someone had fallen into, or came into contact with some "vat" [or similar] of motlen aluminium and his lower torso had become instantly consumed by the metal [Terminator Style].

Except unlike in the film, he screamed, and screamed and screamed. What really freaked out my work mate was the sinister gossip which came out of all of that.

It was whispered round the factory that on seeing their mortally wounded team mate in the vat, screaming, the relative merits of shutting him up by poking him right under the surface were seemingly discussed! Eeek!

Sanity kicked in and they pulled him away but it was too late.

Well that killed the conversation on our lunch break, I can tell you!
( Fire & Forget it's the only way to be sure, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 10:21, Reply)

fire+ kids = fun :)
a while ago, back when i was a scout, my troop and i went off on camp.

on of the excersizes was to get a fire lit in under a minuet and we all completed the task!

so heres the situation, you have 10 kids and 5 roaring firs, being pokes with long sticks...

the not so birght scout decided to get the lighter fule from the scout masters tent and spray it on the fire...

what the prat didnt realise was as the flames lept out at him he dropped the can INTO the fire!, being the dunce he is, he proceeded to pick it up out of the fire.

ok, all in all it didnt go bang, but the plastic was on fire, being the kids we are then proceeded to play football with the burning can of lighter fluid, setting VAST ammounts of grass alight and the odd shoe or leg

....ahhhh....fun times....
( Sir T. Skellington, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 10:08, Reply)

On a shorter note
When based in a university research station in surrey, I used to get in that psychotic state after working all day and night only drinking very strong coffee with loads of sugar. At this point when it's 2 hours before security come round again, it was always fun to take a huge dispenser of 100% ethanol and draw a picture on the gravel in the car park, set it alight and smoke something while gazing at the blue flames.
Unfortunately, this also used to char the pattern in the gravel, so the 30 foot pentagram i drew(you can draw one without turning off the tap, same as not having the pencil leave the paper)led to huge enquiries about whether there was a Satanic Cult in the area.
OOPS.
(cargo, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 6:21, Reply)

In the 70's
Back in the 70's I was very young and my dad was in the RAF. We used to live in one of those awful married quarters houses at a base in Yorkshire which has an L-shaped living room. In those days heating was from good old coal fires supplied with coal from the local pits back when Selby et al was still running. Now, on those cold winter days it was traditional to pile the coal on as much as possible so you didn't have to get up as often to put t' coal on. Mum was off owt at bingo one day and me and my dad were playing a board game on the dining table near the door, which is around the corner from the fire. We had recently bought a fab 70's scientific breakthrough which was a "fireproof rug", I think it was spun from glass fibres or asbestos, in a shade of puke green which was placed in front of the fire.

I kept remarking to my dad "there's something burning", to which his reply was "It's just the coal it's a bit damp".
5 mins later.
"No really something is burning"
"I'll check the oven - no the roast looks ok"
...
"Dad, it's really smoky in here"
"I've just put a fag out, get on with your turn."
..."Dad, is the lava lamp on?"
"No, why"
"There's a big glow from around the corner"

At which point I got up to check to see a huge lump of burning coal had rolled out of the fire and was sitting smack in the middle of the "fireproof" rug setting it alight, though in a sluggish manner and had burned a charred mass about 2 foot across, producing the ghastliest fumes.
"Dad, the rug's on fire".
At which point to see my dad throwing a damp teatowel across the burning mass and trying to carry it out the house shouting "Shit, shit,shit" had me crying with laughter.

The thing is he couldn't smell anything, he has no sense of smell and his job in the RAF? Fireman.

Which was a bonus because a few years later in Cyprus, while torturing insects with a magnifying glass and matches in some dry wastland near the houses, it got out of control.
My dad was on duty and got called out to put out the resulting inferno which nearly burned down 3 houses. Ironically, the fire I started was compounded exponentially by the local cypriot families who, when seeing the fire as it became apparent, running out of their houses with rubbish, old clothes, tyres etc. to dump on the fire.
The sight of firemen from the local base trying to put out a wasteland fire on one side of the towering smoke, with people heaving rubbish from their houses over the fence ONTO the fire that is going to engulf their HOUSE has left me with a rather sad view of the intelligence of most people.

Needless to say, after that scare, I stopped setting fires, torturing small animals and bedwetting (Jeffrey Dahmer territory in case you don't know). Years later I became a vivisectionist.

Apologies for multiple dimensions, I'm an Alien.
(cargo, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 6:09, Reply)

Ooh and
My lip is still mildly burned from tuesday when I filled my mouth with lighter gas, opened my mouth and lit it. Well worth it mind.

Safely set fire to yourself b spraying lynx onto the palm of your hand, then lighting it. It seriously doesnt hurt so long as you blow it out within about 5 seconds.
(Daveh, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 3:57, Reply)

leeds
One of my favorite moments of this years leeds festival was when people decided that regular huge fires were too easy for the fire crews to put out, so set fire to a tree. Naturally, people kept climbing the burning tree, and any time someone got up it a propane canister would be chucked onto the flames, resulting in the foolish tree climber being engulfed by a fire ball. It didn't stop other people climbing it mind, so the fun just kept going.

This wasn't half as cool as the song the crowd made up however... "burn the tree, la, la, la, burn the tree, la, la, la."
(Daveh, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 3:54, Reply)

It burns, it burns!
A semi-entertaining practice I was introduced to as a poor and bored student was setting fire to the fluff on your socks. As long as your socks have a reasonable covering of fluff, you can watch a mini Armageddon-style expanding ring of fire engulf your whole foot. It looks like it should hurt but it just warms your foot nicely. Try this at home, kids!

However, expanding this idea to include my quite fluffy dressing gown wasn't so much fun. My entire body was suddenly covered in sizeable flames, which probably would have burned out quite quickly and harmlessly, but were more than enough to shit me up good and proper. There's not much dignity in rolling around on the floor in just a dressing gown, gibbering in panic, while your housemates look on and laugh.
( Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 3:08, Reply)

Me, and Jason B*********
caught trying to burn down the school dinner halls. I mean, they made us eat there from 1974 to 1979. The B***ards. So what if we burn them down. They deserved it. I tell you, it takes more than candles and lighter fluid to take down a school dinner hall with a vigilant caretaker with a hotline to the police.
( MrHeed, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 1:22, Reply)