Australian Bush Fires
I was born and bred in the Blue Mountains, just to the west of Sydney. The area is mostly national park with suburbs amongst it, so there's a lot of bush, and as a result, a lot of bush fires. Usually every 5-10 years there'll be a really big one which will go for days and burn lots of houses. All very tragic, boo hoo etc.

Anyway, when we know a fire is coming the drill is to put all valuables in a car ready for evacuation (never had to since i was a wee kid), and clear the house of as much dry vegetation as possible (leaves from the gutter etc).

In the 1994 fires, as a 17 y/o, my parents designated me to go onto the roof, clear out the leaves from the gutter and sit there with the hose and watch the progress of the fire. The excitment of it all quickly got boring as the fires were still a day or two away and were probably going to miss our street. As I'm sitting there being bored out of my mind i hear a female cry "hello crud!". I look down to the next door neighbours house. There i see their daughter (who's name escapes me), who'd come back to her parents place to check on them and make sure eveything was ok. The thing about this daughter was that she was about 25, blonde, great looking, huge tits, and she insisted on walking around in the heat weaing only her bikini. This was great. Even better, i was up on the roof so i could really look down on those fantastic mammories. Even better, she was constantly chatting to me, asking about the fires progress, etc. That certainly made the next three days go faster. I reckon the house could have burnt down and i wouldn't have noticed as long as she was standing there.
(king_crud, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 11:30, Reply)

Flaming Aftershock
Clubbing it with friends a coupla years ago, we stagger over to the cocktail bar for some shots.

Cue my bright spark of a mate, orders an Aftershock, then sets it alight.

"Flaming Aftershock!! YEA!" A small crowd gathers to watch the feat. So he throws it back. Still alight.

Next thing half his face is on fire, his bumfluff beard slowly being singed away; he cries out in shock and drops the rest of the burning shot on the bar.

We laughed, he nearly cried, and the barmaid dropped the payload.
(Carling, pint of, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 11:24, Reply)

Leeds Festival 2005
if anyone has been to leeds, they will be well aware of the riots on the last nite.

massive fires, and people throwing anything flamable on them. aerosol cans, gas canisters for bbqs and camping stoves, pritty much anything flamable.

now being a festival, people are walking past fires all the time, even after someone has just put one of those massive bbq gas canisters on.

allegedly, about 4 people got burned by it when it blew up, and a piece of shrapnel hit someone in the eye and they might be blind.

stupid bastards.
was bloody fun tho. :D
(Geoff Leopard, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 11:17, Reply)

Quickly then...
Was poking around the village hall aged 14, when I found a big puddle of heating oil where the enormous, three quarters full, central heating tank was leaking.

Being not entirely stupid, I didn't set it on fire...no, instead, I dipped a stick in it, and set that on fire.

Surprisingly, the stick went 'whoomph'. And I dropped it in the puddle.

What followed next was a minute of pure panic where I tried to put out a rather large fire which was creeping up the side of an enormous tank of heating oil.

Managed to smother it eventually by covering it with my favourite coat and stamping the rest down. My coat was charred to buggery, but at least I didn't *actually* blow up the hall...
(trumpet, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 11:09, Reply)

Scientists
I work in a lab and generally we pass the necks of bottles through a bunsen flame to make sure they are sterile before we pour the contents out. I found out the other day that it's not a good idea to do this with a bottle of ethanol! Oops!! The next day someone else managed to set fire to the tubing of their bunsen burner but never actually thought that it would be a good idea to switch the gas off! Just goes to show scientist really don't have much common sense!
(Delilah Papillon, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 11:01, Reply)

Not me but...
...a notorious friend of ours. I heard he'd burned himself pretty badly at a party a while back, but my sympathy wore out when I heard the why. He's in his late twenties and the party was at his childhood home, where he hasn't lived for several years. During the course of the evening, he decided to make use of the rope swing his dad put up for him many years ago. The (old, quite likely rotten) rope snapped mid-swing, depositing him in the bonfire, which he'd absent-mindedly built directly under the swing. So accustomed are our friends to this guy injuring himself that they didn't so much rush to assist him as watch casually over drinks as he rolled around on the ground, occasionally shouting 'You're still on fire.'
(Silky, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 11:00, Reply)

dib dib dib!
I used to be in scouts (yeah yeah, laugh it up) and on one camp we went on we decided to take vengence on a particular bastard we all hated.
We look a trusty can of lynx deoderant and sprayed his shoes til they were dripping with the stuff, about 10 minutes later he comes back from a massive hike and changes into his trainers.
We were all running around playing dumb games like 'jump over the fire' to make this kid try and do the same.....He took the bait.

There really is no sight like one of your enemies running around like a mad man screaming with his shoes on fire, we nicknamed him Sonic after that :-)
(Xyphious : Sinkin' Gin since '85, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:58, Reply)

being a master chef, me
i mananged to set fire to carrots. Burning carrots is a nasty smell,and it hangs around for ages.

Oh, and microchips.

we watched them slowly spinning around in the microwave aflame. Its quite beautiful, actually.
(Le mango, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:56, Reply)

Supernoodles
I used to quite often go out boozing straight from work and end up back home at about 10pm, pretty roasted by then after having downed about a bottle and half of vino on an empty stomach.

One particular night, I got home and was feeling rather peckish, so I had a little rummage in the cupboards and found a packet of chicken flavour supernoodles - food of the gods as any right-minded pisshead will testify.

While the kettle was boiling I quickly got ready for bed and put on my dressing gown, then headed back into the kitchen and proceeded to make my tasty snack on the gas hob. Unfortunately I got distracted while I was stirring in the flavour sachet and ended up setting fire to my dressing gown sleeve - still, it gave me an excuse for throwing the gown away - it had belonged to an ex who turned out to be a bit of a wanker. So it wasn't all bad. And the supernoodles were ace as always.
(Mad McMad, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:55, Reply)

A compilation of fire
In chronological order:
1) Filling a water pressure rocket (one of the bike pump jobs) with petrol, then launching it down a garden after putting a lit rag behind it. Very big fireball gets blown back up the garden towards us. I escape with singed hair, my mate was wearing wellies and bermuda shorts (?), he had a bit of trouble explaining how he got 2 burnt knees to his mum.

2) Parents go out for dinner, a friend and I start throwing handfuls of things from the kitchen on the fire. Salt... nothing, flour.... rubbish, Icing sugar... whooomph! 10 minutes later a roaring sound is coming from the fire. I glance up the chimney to find a tunnel of flame that looks like the entrance to hell (but going up, instead of down). Go outside and have a look, the top of the chimney looks like an afterburner. Call parents and fire brigade. Turns out the chimney pipe bits had been put in upside down, tarry residue had collected over the years and it could have gone up at any time... purely coincidence that it was when the folks were out.

3) Small camping gaz cannister on someone elses fire. Doesn't sound too impressive and didn't make a big bang, but did make a nice mushroom cloud of flame, which I hadn't seen before or since. Shame about the overhead telephone wires.

4) An unhealthy interest in making explosives is discovered by the parents. Mum, being a science teacher decides the best approach is the educational one. I manage to balance all the equations, work out the right quantities of ingredients to use, sift out the flame suppresant and start mixing (ery, very gently). The trial one was a kind of sad chemistry lesson pop. Not very imressive, and was swiftly followed by a "Well now that you know" kind of speach from mum, which in turn was followed by some swift "you'll never guess what" phonecalls to my freinds. We were on "study" leave at the time, in a month we managed to:
-Launch a piece of scaffolding accross some heathland, it went so far we never found it.
-Destroy a shed
-inflict many shrapnel wounds on each other
-Contribute to an elderly neighbours tinittus (at least they didn't have a heart condition). That was when we thought it might be time to stop.

Somehow the headmaster at our school had caught wind of our activities. So when some Sodium went missing from the science labs I was put in a blame or be blamed position. Being the hardcore 15 year old I was (ahem), I didn't fess up. Someone else flushed it down the toilets, it stunk and I had alibis.

Sorted.

In your face Mr Lizard / Larry Grayson headmaster twunt, bounce that on your nylon slack clad knees.

I don't burn much anymore.... but I do make long posts here, and am not going to make any apologies.
(ralphseviltwin, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:52, Reply)

Woods burnt down
I once burnt down the Woods opposite the Canons leisure center as a kid by burning a HiFi in the reeds which promptly exploded and spread like wildfire.

They are still just little stumps of trees ten years later. I am proud.
( Terry Nutkins, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:31, Reply)

Drunk
Fell asleep pissed after leaving a candle burning on the mantlepiece at one of my own parties once whilst the folks were abroad.
Next morning i was woken by a girl calmly assuring me the house was engulfed in flames downstairs.

Luckily there were loads of us so we all grabbed clothes, soaked them and gradually put the fire out one square foot at a time.
By the time it had gone out, the whole house was covered in soot.

soot is the hardest of all stains to remove so 12 hours later we had all repainted most of the house and rehung new curtains, had professional carpet cleaners in, re plastered the mantle piece and painted it the exact (and I mean exact) shade of green as the wallpaper in that room (as none of us could wallpaper to save our lives)

I have to say, it was quite an effort from us all and it was an amazing job we did. nothing gets past my mum though.

We decided to leave the house for their arrival back from holiday so the guilty look on my face didn't add to their inspection of the house, the only problem was i went out and left the front door wide open so they were greeted by the dogs a quarter mile down the road before getting home which pissed them off immensly, then they were LOOKING for reasons to belt me one.

mum immediately noticed the different green on the mantlepiece and I came clean (sorry) about the whole thing. I never saw daylight for the rest of the year.
( Terry Nutkins, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:27, Reply)

my mate accidentally*
burnt his parents house down one evening whilst we were all there having a party (*lit cigarette ignites curtain etc etc).

we were all stood outside watching the firemen do their stuff when, just as a fireman is carrying my mate out of the smoke filled house, my mates elder brother turns up, and promptly starts singing 'Holding out for a hero' by Bonnie Tyler.
Kind of relaxed the atmosphere I thought.

Although his parents didn't see it that way. - miserable fuckers.
(nappy rash, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 10:20, Reply)

Fire
was likely the single most fun thing when I was young (okay, besides lego).
I remember looting my friends parents' shed for bottles containing flammable fluids and pooring it out on the sand in the bushes and setting fire to it. Ooh the magic of the flames....
Or pooring ethanol into ant nests and seeing the tiny charcoaled corpses curl up. Later we discovered bunsen burners and magnesium.

But the apex was always New Year's eve in The Hague, notorious for its riots with the police and setting fire to huge piles of christmas trees, pallets and cars. In the weeks before New Years' eve, we would make bombs out of heavy fireworks and metal pipes. The trick was to stay away from the police cars and even helicopters once you let one go off. In school breaks, we sometimes threw one of these in the pond behind the school, causing dead fish to come float to the surface. Our maximum fish count then was about 85. Sad, yeah.
But about the Eve fires....I'm talking fires 60 feet high here. Everything up to garden fences, cars and whole house interiors were sacrificed to the flames. Once a 'slightly' pissed bloke threw a whole barrel of petrol on an already huge fire, causing it to explode of course, knocking out the windows of dozens of surrounding houses and flats (the closest one a couple of hundred metres away) and making the mailbox lid at my mates house clapper. He lived about ten blocks further on. Even the mayor of The Hague came over to see what had happened that night. It was the biggest and hottest fire I had ever seen. I was sure the main reason the mayor came over was because he wanted to see it for himself. He was sniggering I tell you.
( mediocre ha ha ha, you're reading this, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 9:54, Reply)

He was the god of head fire
I was camping with 3 friends in some woods not too far from my home one evening, all was going well much cider drunk etc. I was sitting outside the tent because my mate didn't want hot rock burns in his flysheet, which is perfectly understandable when the very same chum decided he was going to light the meths burner cooker thing INSIDE the tent. DOH! queue him blowing on the flame whilst it was alight, the meths exploding around him inside this tent and engulfing his head in flames!! It was hilarious as he had no eyebrows or fringe.

I then continued to taunt him for the rest of the night by spraying large amounts of aerosol into a 2 litre plastic bottle, lighting the fumes and squeezing the bottle to make large plumes of fire squirt out of the top. In his face.

Ah to be young again.....
(Jimmy Large Is huffing Jenkem on, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 9:45, Reply)

Good intentions
While emptying a wheelbarrow onto a bonfire I noticed that I had accidentally dropped a full bottle of hammerite thinners into the middle of the fire and being concerned that this would be a bad thing as the bonfire was next to a BT switching hut I decided to remove the bottle from the fire quickly, by kicking it. Just as I kicked it the bottle exploded and because I had forgotten I was wearing sandals the sudden burning toe sensation was a shock. As the metal bottle of thinners had exploded the the plastic 'safety cap' had glued itself to my foot and kept on burning, in the end I had to cut the plastic off my toe leaving some very impressive burns and cuts. The burn ointment I used then stained my foot yellow and it took 3 months for it to look normal again.
(lankymike, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 9:43, Reply)

Carelessness Causes Fire
Does it buggery. To do that you need:

1. Enough oxygen to sustain combustion,
2. Enough heat to raise the material to its ignition temperature,
3. Some sort of fuel or combustible material, and the chemical, exothermic reaction that is fire.

Bloody liars.
(Chickenwire social lubricator extraordinaire, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 9:36, Reply)

We used to burn things. Anythings. Lots of things.
There were these prefab huts up at the park, which were sort of an extension of the school which was next to the park. They were the long double classroom ones. Lots of schools have them.

They'd only lasted about 6 months before falling into disrepair for some reason (vandalism probably), and the school no longer used them anymore.

We used to have catapult fights in them and generally use them as a 'base'. They were great.

One day we were bored of the ususal levels of destruction, so we decided to draw nobs all over them with our recently procured spray paint.

Naturally, there's only so many nobs one can draw before the novelty wears off, so one of us hit on the idea of flaming nobs.

We did a few flaming nobs, all of which went out soon after.

Again the novelty wore off and as it was about time for tea, we went home to my mates house, who lived about 1/2 a mile away.

About 2 hours later we went outside - i'm not sure what for, but we became aware (having forgotten completely about our earlier antics) of whisps of ember floating around our heads in the street outside his house and the thick smell of burning.

As we turned to each other the realisation hit us and we nipped to the end of the road to have a peek at our work.

The blaze was magnificent. The furore was quite a scene. Both the huts had gone up - and they really did light up the sky.

We were very proud of that.
(beebolbod for those that are hard of hearing - LISTEN, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 9:32, Reply)

Can you smell something cooking?
I have absolutely no right to be alive after this incident due to the vast quantity of alcohol consumed but...
Vodka nation night at Babylon in Bath a high class establishment where 'cocktails' are made by filling a large swing bin as follows-
Take crate of vodka and unscrew the caps without removing them from the crate to save time, do the same with a couple of crates of cheap cider and some cheeryade and empty the whole lot into the bin serve at 50p for a plastic cup full (1.5units) and mix with really crap music at ear bleeding volumes.
4 or 5 hours later I had consumed 47 units of alcohol (Barman was a friend of a friend and had decided to see how much we could handle) I didn't actually feel too drunk by the end of the night (always a bad sign) and was leaning on a handy wall talking to a friend until I noticed her coat was smoking (she had sat on an uplighter) then someone said "Whats that hot smell" and I noticed the skin of my arm was also smoking and had glued itself to another uplighter.
Next morning still so drunk I couldn't see and I had an assesed laboratory practical; i spent the day sitting down making other people do my work as I actually couldn't see.(I walked into a fume cupboard and nearly broke my nose)
Fun (I also tried to propose to a girl in the labs using a quickfit glass clamp instead of a ring)
(lankymike, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 9:05, Reply)

I still have
the bum scars
(teasus likes tea, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 8:57, Reply)

Fire!
It's orange and yellow and looks good on hippies......:)
(stonersmurf stuckin' foned, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 8:27, Reply)

Flaming snowman
Back in high school, my friends were trying to come up with a list of oxymorons. One guy said "Flaming snowman." Then another friend said "It...could...work!"

All it needed was gasoline(petrol, whatever). The first time we tried it was in a huge open field in full view of a very large mall parking lot. We were 16-year-old kids and had no idea how to obtain some gas. I tried getting some at the gas station with a two-liter bottle, but they lent me a gascan. We sent the thing up in flames.

The next year we started doing it in a more secluded ravine. Once, we heard people coming, so we all ran and hid, leaving these two adults to walk past a flaming snowman at night. I can't imagine what was going through their minds.

I've done everything I could to make this a tradition. Last Christmas I went back to my hometown and got some friends together on Christmas Eve to burn a snowman.

As I always do, here are some photos of the event:

Adding the secret ingredient
www.indecline.net/korea/archive/snowman/93.JPG

On fire



Blowing it out
www.indecline.net/korea/archive/snowman/85.JPG

The grand finale: tackling the crap out of it
www.indecline.net/korea/archive/snowman/83.JPG

Sorry if I don't usually
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 6:24, Reply)

Scariest Girl Fiend Ever
Always carried paper towels with her, so as to avoid contact with germy surfaces. A bit dyslexic too, and she liked going around without her dentures. Never figured her for a pyro, though....

Putting on a pot of tea, she swapped the paper towel with the tea pot. She turned away from the stove and gave me the sweetest, biggest gap-toothed grin as the fiery paper towel danced around the kitchen behind her.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 5:32, Reply)

Donuts
Its not really my story...

My dad decided that while his parents were gone that he would make some doughnuts. With boiling oil (how he knew that he needed to boil oil for doughnuts at the age of 10 I have no idea). Needless to say it burst into flames and burnt up their whole kitchen.
(Rubberbulletkisses, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 4:52, Reply)

The Boy (Fire Alarm?) Who Cried Fire?
By now, my high school (North Hollywood High = pure class) has become completely immune to fire alarms. The alarms start going, lights start guiding us to the exits, but everyone just keeps sitting in their highly combustible desks around mounds of paper, completely unimpressed. Some punkass cholo must have pulled it. Repeat at least once a week. Then, on a Saturday, we were hosting a band competition when the familiar caustic drone starts. "Don't worry," we said to frightened non-natives, "it's nothing."
Frasher Hall was on fire.
Go Huskies.
(Digitdean: Disappointing Fans Since 1989!, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 4:32, Reply)

fiyah
Bored in a tiny Cumbrian village, I would occasionally commit fire to the countryside by taping an aerosol can around the nozzle, so as to elicit a constant jet of gas which I would then set alight. Flames would engulf the can which I would then shoot with an air rifle, causing a decent-sized shrapnelly explosion - the holy grail!
(riuhiru, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 1:22, Reply)

Well
When i was a child, around 7 or 8 i imagine, there was a popular early morning show, presented by the (not so) lovely Cheryl Baker.

Cue me, waking up rediculously early on sat morning, and watching cheryl baker make cripsy cakes, and melting the chocolate in the microwave in a plastic tub.

Being the innoncent young un i was, i presumed that microwave and cooker are sort of the same, and decided to put a plastic vitalite tub on the cooker.

then it set on fire.
then my sister came downstairs.
and started screaming.

which woke my mother up and she came down and put a wet towel over it. phew,

punishment?

made to clean the cooker and 6 weeks grounding.
but i did manage to get a blue peter badge in those 6 weeks. woooo.

no apologies for anything,

EDIT : oops forgot to say i leave the oven on almost everyweekend with food in it, when im pissed and fall asleep. our mam goes beserk!
(Geoff Leopard, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 0:19, Reply)

well...
one day i decided to show my friends what happens when you fill an empty 2 litre bottle with lynx, light the top and squeeze. it makes a nice fireball shoot out the top.
we went back to his house and were sat playing on his ps2 when he walks in with a bottle and says "lets test your idea then". he lights the top squeezes and WHOOMPH! all the posters on his bedroom ceiling burst into flames as the fire starts to spread round.in sheer panic all 4 of us leap up and start using anything to bat the flames out and salvage any posters not yet crisped.
his mum arrives home later and says " thats funny it smells smokey in here"
que us all hoping she doesnt notice the scorched poster-less ceiling
(Haggard, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 0:17, Reply)

Fire Magnetism By Proxy
Me and my missus have this condition - we attract fire by accident.

On our 1st date to the cinema (Finding Nemo was the film of choice) the popcorn maker caught fire and we had to be evacuated. We then walked back into the cinema when the manager said it was safe, a genius member of staff then decided to turn it back on again, prompting another fire. We decided to go for a walk back to mine at this point, where we drank a rather considerable amount of absinthe and baileys.

At my 18th party, me and a group of people decided to have a Ruby Murray before going out on the lash - the restaurant caught fire, and we got the meals for free. Not bad really.

My worst moment was probably when I was about 6 and I was cooking with my nan. She was doing a fry up for my grandad and I was "helping", as 6 year olds do. I then proceeded to grab a bottle of whisky, thinking it was vinegar for the chips. I opened the bottle and placed it by the side of the cooker. I then jumped up onto the counter and knocked the whisky onto the frying pan.

A Big whoosh of fire, two curtains going ablaze, one severely screwed fry up, a very distressed mum, and a hospital trip later, and I still have burn scars on my left arm from it all.
(tangentboy strikes again, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 0:09, Reply)