Oh, dear god.
When I was a student, I was at a party coming down from something or other when I muttered "what this place needs is a bit of mindless terrorism". Hey: this was 1988. It was a different world then. Anyway: little did I know what I had started.

Within a few days I had a steady stream of art students coming to me with recipes for gunpowder and a kind of eager look on their faces. To cut a long preamble short, me and a fellow student went on a several-week long comedy reign of terror, letting off bombs that (although causing no damage) could be heard a mile and a half away. We'd let them off by the cellar doors of the student bar, under the windows of anti-social twunts playing overly loud music on a Sunday. It became quite the sport to get maximum impact with minimum chance of detection. Then...

I went to my mate's room to check on production of the next batch of comedy bombs. He handed me a mortar and pestle and said "I've been grinding this all day". He didn't tell me he'd mixed the powder and then ground it - that's a total no-no. He'd also substituted potassium chlorate for the saltpetre in the mixture. In theory, this should go off when you breathe on it, and he'd been grinding a complete mixture ALL DAY with no ill-effects. I ground it ONCE and was engulfed in a 5ft fireball that sucked most of the oxygen from the ground floor and caused the smoke pall from hell. My hair was sticking up and smoking like something out of a cartoon. I had 2nd degree burns on my face and hands, and was rushed to hospital in Wakefield, 6 miles away.

To celebrate my heroics/idiocy, my friends decided to get rid of the evidence by conducting a series of experiments "in my memory". They concluded that

a) throwing a lit bomb into a lake will not stop it going off. On the contrary, it makes the explosion more exciting.

and

b) if you put a lit bomb in a drainpipe, it will blow out the bathplug from two floors away. I believe the victim of the drainpipe bathplug ejection is now the Executive Producer of Fame Academy. Oh, did she look surprised.

I spent the next week bandaged like the invisible man. Quite hilarious.

Kids: don't try this at home. Get your A-Levels and go and do it at Uni.
( sp3ccylad carries on breathing all the way up to, say, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 18:40, Reply)

I was one of about three people that my grandfather actually remembered.
He would forget most people existed the moment they walked out of the room.
I kind of liked that he would say "Alex!! Have you joined the army yet?!" each time he saw me. At least he recognised my face.
For this reason, I thought I would make him happy during his final few years by signing up to the C.C.F. (Combined Cadet Force) Army Section... thus enabling me to say "Why yes i have Granddad!" the next time we saw each other.
Now i should explain that I didnt't really want to sign up... i only did it to make him happy.
Anyway... as expected, he was thrilled that i had joined, so much so i half expected a salute each time i said hello to him.
A couple of years later when he'd finally had his chips and popped his clogs, i was left drowning in the overwelming homo-eroticism that is the British Army CCF. I didn't really want to be a cadet anymore. However, something i failed to realise when i signed up, was that you have to be a member for at least 4 years (so they told me 2 years into it), so i requested a tranfer into the RAF section instead.
It turns out the RAF CCF is even more GAY than the Army CCF, so i made it my goal to be chucked out of it as fast as possible.
Here's where the fire comes in.
We went on a 3 day expedition on a proper forces training ground somewhere in derbyshire i think.
We had been supplied with 3 day ration packs and a bivawac for sleeping in.
We were marched in squad formation to the area our sections camp was based, which was fine, except I was at the back of squad with three of my friends, who were just as bored with the whole thing as me...
We stopped marching. Everyone else carried on without noticing and within 20 seconds we were stood alone in the woods watching our squad left-right-left it around the corner.
Oh what fun we were going to have.
As predicable as can be, we set about making a camp for ourselves. This consisted of a four shoody bivawacs and a fucking MASSIVE fire... and that's about it.
We kept the fire going for a day and half with a well-thought out fire wood collection rota, this worked well, as at one point the flames were three times the height of me. it was great.
Now I think back, it's amazing we didn't get found sooner... but halfway through the second day we were discovered.
A female american CCF NCO who we knew from school walked into our camp just as one of my friends was completing his 6th "Watch me jump through the fire" routine and screamed "WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN DOING?!?! EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR YOU!!" apparantly, the weekends activities had been cancelled and our entire squad had been made to march around searching for us. We were not popular.
"I'LL BE BACK IN A MINUTE... DONT GO ANYWHERE!" the NCO bellowed.
Yeah right. As soon as she was round the corner we were all either jumping on or pissing in the fire trying to put it out.
And would you beleive it... it worked. The fire went out and we threw earth all over it... and you really couldn't tell there had been one. We packed up the bivawacs as quick as we could and just ran in the opposite direction to the NCO.
We rounded a corner about 100 metres away and lay over the crest of a hill to watch what would happen when the NCO came back.
A couple of minutes later she returned... with 4 very official looking army blokes in tow.
I was giggling to much to realise how much we'd pissed these people off and watched with great satisfaction as the NCO started making "BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND! THEY WERE RIGHT HERE!! THE FIRE WAS HUGE!!" body language.
We thought we'd got away with it when one of the scary army blokes rummaged around in some leaves and pulled out a smoking twig no more than 4 inches long. That was it. We were fucked.

"GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE!!" he yelled randomly into the air, obviously hoping we were still in the area.
Well... this is it lads. We all got up and sheepishly walked back to the camp and got the most severe bollocking of my life off one of the now aubergine-faced army chaps.
Myself and Tom, as the biggest members of our breakaway squad, were made to walk 10 miles with a massive plastic container as punishment.
For the first 5 miles, we thought it was a piece of piss and were laughing about how the Forces were so GAY, but then after arriving at our destination, were told to fill the container with water and take it back to where we had just come from.
That sucked. I dont know if you are aware of this, but massive containers full of water are REALLY FUCKING HEAVY it turns out.
Hours later, we arrived back at the camp with the fucking heavy water container and were made to pour it all over the ground where we had lit the fire. It was pointless... the fire had been out for hours by this point but that didn't stop them making us do it.
In retrospect, i suppose it was a great punishment in regards to the crime we had committed so i don't hold any grudges. Anyway, it is a great memory of mine so thanks CCF.
Best of all, after those 10 miles, i was never made to do CCF activities again.

GOAL ACHIEVED!
( biscuits_alive taste my rainbow, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 13:42, Reply)

...And she married me. Go figure.
So I invite this girl over to the apartment. I cook a pot of spaghetti and meatballs, everything from scratch. Got a nice bottle of red, got candles on the table. I'm like Mr. Romance this evening. I serve dinner, take a seat, and lean over the table to start the Sam Cooke CD.

So she's tucking in to the food, I'm admiring how beautiful she looks, and I notice something bright out on the periphery of my vision. I look down, and my chest is on fire. Seems while I was firing up the CD, I was leaning over the candle.

Did I say "Mr. Romance"? More like Mr. Don't Play With Matches...
(wretch, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 20:41, Reply)

£2.25 Million worth of damage - beat that!
As a poor-ish student i took a job, as so many do, in a call centre answering rich folks queries about diamond encrusted credit cards. This particular centre was in Fulham Broadway, two floors above a barclays bank. It was, of course, a shitty, shitty job - but it provided additional beer money so, fair enough. One typically dull winter's evening i was on the late shift when i was told i could have a five minute break. Now, the lifts in the building are notouriously slow, and naturally one had to go outside to smoke. This combination of affairs meant it was common practise to light one's fag in the lift during these five minute breaks in order to get the full quota of two cancer sticks squeezed into the unforgiving time slot.
Dashing to the lift, it opened and i stepped inside - alone, save for a large pile of full black sacks the lazy bastard cleaner had left in the corner of the lift. As the doors shut, i struck my match and was about to light siad ciggy when who should put their foot in the door but my twatty, three years younger than me line manager. In my haste i whipped the fag from my mouth and slung the fag and match behind my back onto the floor. Twatty line manager just stood there looking at me - "Ha, he hadn't caught me out!"
I was in the lift alone. as it started to desend, i turned round to retrieve my cigarette and instead came face to face with a flaming bag of paper towels. Aleady the flames were huge and i was trapped. Expecting death, i stabbed blindly at the lift buttons; the doors opened and i ran from the lift, back up the one floor to the call centre. On reaching the door into the large office, i noticed someone was stood at the lift door. When it opened, a gush of flames swept across the ceiling of the entire call centre with such sped and ferocity that everyone, myself included, dived to the floor.
Alarms rang and we all escaped unharmed - the building was thankfully well designed in that respect.
I wandered around outside innocently - wondering 'what on earth could have caused such a thing?' I was about to go home when WPC Plod's leathered hand clamped my shoulder. Gulp. Twatty line manager had 'seen me setting fire to rubbish in the lift'. Arrested, down the station, stripped and put into a white paper clown's outfit. Charged with 'Arson with intent to endanger life' - a charge which the arresting officer salaciously tells me carries a life sentence. Understandably i was absolutely bricking it.
I paced the cell that night, chewing my lip, contemplating my fate - 'how the hell, what the fuck, when did . . bugger. I'm fucked.' What to do . . .
It hit me at about midday the next day - TELL THE TRUTH. It WAS and accident - you can't get done for an accident - i'd lose a job i hated at worst . . it really was that simple. In my interview, i could tell the detectives were expecting a nice juicy interrogation. It was here that they informed me that I'd burned down not only the call centre, but the bank as well and they reckoned ..oooh, 2 and a quarter million in damage . . . "Satisfied, are you?"
My telling the truth completely disarmed them - what could they do - it was, indeed, an accident.
I was bailed and four months later the charges were dropped.
My errant match destroyed more in one hour than i will make in a lifetime or two.

I never went back there to work.
( ilovemy5dollarhorse All things considered, Fri 5 Mar 2004, 0:04, Reply)

I was a Scout Leader... highly responsible bloke....
as were all my Leader mates.

We'd had a good evening 'wide game' with the kids, which ended in them setting off firework rockets to signal they'd won.

After they went to bed, the leaders stayed up into the small hours having a few beers. Seemed to me to be a good idea to set off the leftover rockets - and spotting a length of plastic drainpipe by a fence, decided we should see if it worked like a Bazooka, held horizonatlly on my mate's shoulder.

It did.

Whooooosh! over the tents and into the distance. Then silsence. Then a distant glow.

We charged over there to find the neighbouring village common on fire (dry gorse burns well!). Anyway, we fought the fire for 30 mins, called the fire brigade, evacuated the camp site... I ended up in hospital with burnt hands - but was proclaimed a hero for trying to put out the fire, saving the kids - all obviously due to local yobs lighting fires! 20 years ago, locals still talk about the nifght the common was razed to the ground and about the brave Scout Leaders...
(Wombat Joe, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 8:51, Reply)

Oh yeah!
I forgot about this one...

In my chemistry teacher's old school, a boy stole some magnesium (might have been sodium, potassium etc.. i don't remember) from the chem labs. Then, over the tannoy, the headteacher said "Whoever's stolen the *group 1 element* from the chem labs, please return it and we won't punish you.

Now, what did the stupid child do? He panicked and flushed it down the loo...


BOOM! Every single fucking toilet in the school blew mile high, costing thousands of pounds of damage.

I don't think he lasted long in the school after that....
( Naive Amoeba Bored Cig, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 21:09, Reply)

Pipe Bomb
Some mates and I made a pipe bomb/mortar once and got arrested. I mixed up my own black powder using my Dad's extensive list of chemicals that he kept in the garage (he was an industrial chemist.) We then took said powder to a local sandstone quarry which overlooked the village.

We found an old bit of steel pipe that was sealed at one end, filled the open end with the powder and buried it deep in the sandstone (open end up).

I then proceeded (rather stupidly with hindsight) to hammer a small pebble in the open end to seal it all up. Now having a sealed metal pipe buried in the ground we had no way of igniting it so we built a fire around it. We all sat back expecting not much to happen. The mix of black powder was completely random and the seal on the pipe was a bit suss.

After a while, sparks began shooting out of the end of the pipe (I had also put a good dose of iron filings in the powder.) Now these weren't sparkler type sparks, we're talking a good 7-8 feet in length. Woo-hoo! Our jubilations were short lived as an enormous boom ripped through the quarry temporarily deafening us and leaving a 10 foot wide crater in the sandstone. We legged it. Later on we found out that the pebble in the end of the pipe had smashed through the window of a pub about 1/4 mile away below the quarry and almost killed the barmaid.

We were arrested in school the next morning 'cause someone snitched. Bastards! Good fun though. My Dad gave me a right bollocking.
(doowaz, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 20:48, Reply)

Remember kids: Mr Fire is not your friend
The Summer of ‘76 was a scorcher. The sun burned down every day. It didn’t rain for months, and water was rationed as the reservoirs ran dry. Instead of a beautiful lush green, the England was brown, withered and fit to burst into flames. Which is probably a very bad thing if you’re a ten-year-old pyromaniac.

I just couldn’t help it. I had a thing for fire. My parents didn’t help much by putting me in the cub scouts, which was rubbing two sticks together and blazing camp fires all the way. My most excellent grandfather had a bonfire almost every weekend, and we’d pile anything flammable on top and watch the flames scorch the feathers off birds for a hundred yard radius.

I had to burn things. It was ace.

So it came to pass that I found myself on the wasteland between Loddon Hall and the youth club with nothing to do and a packet of Swan Vestas rattling in my pocket. A hedge ran along one side separating it from the park, and that’s where I found an empty glass coke bottle.

It was then I had one of those lightbulb-over-your-head moments.

“Wouldn’t it be great if I could light a fire in this coke bottle and carry it around with me?”

To a ten year old this genie in a bottle stuff is pretty sound logic, but frankly, nigh on impossible as any fule kno.

I stuffed the bottle with scraps of paper and tinder-dry sticks of which there was a plentiful supply. I struck my first match and put it in. Nothing. As soon as it passed the bottle top it went out. Stupid thing. I tried it again. And again. And again with less paper and sticks in the bottle. Clearly it wasn’t going to work.

My second lightbulb moment.

“What if I lit the fire outside the bottle, and once it’s well lit, I can put it in!”

Genius. I set about building a small fire out of the materials to hand. One match, and up it went like Mount Vesuvius. In the space of approximately five seconds, my small fire had become a raging inferno. And there was no way on earth I was going to pick it up and shove it in a bottle. In fact, the fire was spreading at such an alarming rate over the grass and into the bushes that all thought of my fire-in-a-bottle were forgotten and replaced by an overwhelming urge to run away and hide under my bed.

So that’s what I did. I only lived about a quarter of a mile away, and my feet barely touched the ground. A glance over my shoulder confirmed the worst - the entire hedgerow was aflame in almost biblical proportions. I ran upstairs and dived under my bed. By the light of a blazing match (yes, I really was THAT stupid), I could see that I was alright and clearly hadn’t been followed home by the forces of law and order.

I went downstairs. My mother was standing at the kitchen window watching a column of thick black smoke rising into the sky, punctuated by the odd lick of flame. The sound of sirens could be heard.

“Ooh. I wonder what happened there then?”

I wouldn’t know, mother, I wouldn’t know. I just hoped my eyebrows would grow back before she noticed.

Postscript: I went back to the scene of the crime a few years ago (for the now infamous Wedding From Hell). It’s all grown back now, and I didn’t even have the slightest urge to strike a match. Hardly.

Shameless plug: More burny tales of mirth and woe back at the Scary webshite. That bloke from the Prodigy reckoned he was a twisted firestarter. Feh - he was a rank amateur.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 20:22, Reply)

Panda or 2CV
I used to have a 2CV. I was doing some work for Surrey Fire Service at the time and one of the guys there, we'll call him Russell, said..."Woah mate, don't have a 2CV, did you know that 9 out of 10 car fires we attend are 2CV's? Yes, the cardboard hoses fall onto the engine block and often burn the entire car". "Good Lord!", i said and promptly sold the offending vehicle and bought a Fiat Panda. One week later i stopped at the lights at the bottom of Reigate Hill and noticed smoke coming out of the bonnet. Within 2 minutes the entire car was ablaze. 3 minutes after that Russell showed up in his big red fire lorry. Naturally he was pissing himself laughing. Apparently the other 1 out of 10 model car fire that Surrey Fire Service attend is Fiat Pandas.
(inactionman, Thu 4 Mar 2004, 13:42, Reply)

Not me but my bird
I returned home from work to the smell of smoke. Running around, I eventually found the charred remains of a large owl in the front room. It had come down my chimney, set itself on fire, knocked down the fireguard, flapped across the room presumably in flames (wish I'd seen that) and perished. The only real damage was the masses of owlshit on my carpet but my insurance company paid for the whole lounge to be redecorated. Ha ha. Twats.
(skindley, Thu 4 Mar 2004, 1:42, Reply)

In university in Leeds...
The landlord of our student house had been round a few weeks earlier and savagely felled all the trees in our garden and left all the branches and twigs outside the house making the whole place look like the Blair Witch Woods.

So we decided as it was November 5th to invite a load of people over and have a bonfire party. So we cut up all the wood, piled it into a sizeable bonfire and attempted to light it in the traditional way - unwilling to give it some time, a bright spark in the group nips off to the garage and returns with a can of petrol - which he proceeds to pour onto the bonfire without noticing the lick of flame in the depths of the wood.

Cue, eight foot blast of fire! Petrol can catches fire. Unfortunately, the perpetrator's mind deactivates momentarily and he runs around holding the flaming can accompanied by the voices of thirty people shouting 'drop it you twat!'

He finally drops the can which spills out and leaves a lake of burning fuel on the lawn of the house, very close to the pavement and nearby road. As we discuss the relative merits of calling the fire brigade, I attempt to warn passing pedestrians - unfortunately they are not convinced by my 'i'd cross the road mate, there's a load of petrol on fire down there' warning - that is until they feel the searing heat of the three foot column of flaming petrol.

Long story short, whilst our invited guests (and my other housemates) cower around the corner I singlehandedly put out the fire using every single tea towel in the house and a bath mat. Hurrah!

We did manage to light the bonfire which attracted a guy from across the road who long after we'd all gone inside stood out in the pissing rain and stoked the bonfire whilst we peeked out from behind the curtains to watch him dancing around the fire in a tribal fashion. And it attracted another bloke who was off his tits on something and wandered uninvited into our house for a bit, well until we threw him out. Corner of Winston Mount & Headingley Mount, Headingley, Leeds, November 5th 2003 - were either of these people you?

Sorry, that's quite a long story really - not entirely sure it was worth it now?!
( Gnoll, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 15:22, Reply)

2 house fires in 2 weeks
I've had a death defying start to the year.

Split up with my girlfirend of 5 years 2 days before new year.

Crashed my car into a wall a week later.

Next week I came home from the pub and put some food in the microwave. timer is broken and it staeyd on - I passed out on the couch and woke up at 10:30 am with the microwave on fire. Room full of smoke and me feeling very ill.. took all day to clean it up.

If the bag that was next to the vents (and the scorch marks up the wall) had ignited I'd have bought the farm.

And the worst thing is that I did something even more stupid the following weekend.

Again I'd come home from the pub a bit hammered - Only this time I was using a mini blow torch to light cigarettes since I'd broken all of my lighters. Unfortunately I must have passed out wilst the blowtorch was still burning and dropped it on the table next to me.

All my remotes all burnt to a crisp. mobile and house phones gone.. Burning plastic splattered onto my arm and all across radiator, walls, even on the ceiling. I actually found the TV remote had been blasted 10 feet across the room when the blow torch exploded... lucky thing was that I normally have a can of lighter fluid on the table - but it was sat on the floor that night.

So I woke up and the whole rooms black with smoke. I'm black as coal. I'm still cleaning up the soot a month later.

Worst thing was that I'd met a german girl that night and she'd given me her phone number - which was on my now rather crispy mobile.... Got her number back after a few calls to her friends luckily...

but it turned out that after seeing her a few times she told me her boyfriend was coming over from germany ! hence losing the local boy pretty sharpish...

beyotch !
(TheGoodStuff, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 14:38, Reply)

bah
due to subliminal messaging, i was persuaded to start a fire in a disco. I also set fire to a Taco Bell in the early hours of monday morning.
(Market Man, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 13:38, Reply)

In uni halls
the fire alarm would go off several times a week, and when it went off in one house it set off the alarms in the two either side. Unfortunately for our house, which had never set it off, we were in the middle of the two worst houses for false alarms (smoking in rooms and stuff).

So of course one day when the alarm went off I casually finished my phone-call, put on some shoes, went looking for my jumper then heard my mate shouting "The place is on fire!", assuming he was taking the piss because of how often the alarm sounds I carried on looking for my jumper.

Upon opening my door though I was met with a wall of nasty plastic smoke, none of which had come through up to then. I wandered down to the kitchen to find the two guys who were in planning to run in to grab the fire extiguisher, it seemed, with what little we could actually see that the toaster was on fire. Anders the Danish guy ran in, got the extinguisher and sprayed it a couple of times, then we had to leave it until the fire brigade arrived.


After sitting in the car keeping warm (whilst all the people from the other houses that normally set it off froze) for a while we were allowed back in to our very black and very damp kitchen, the only damage being one destroyed cupboard and of course the toaster.

Here's a pic of it, I can't believe how much black smoke came off such a small thing, but almost all the plastic had gone off it. The black bit of wall is where the cupboard was.


Cause of fire was probably an electrical fault as no-one had been in for about 2 hours. The cupboard belonged to the owner of the toaster who wasn't in, we left it outside for her return with a post-it note on identifying it as hers :)
( NomDePlume fo shizzle my nizzle old bean, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 19:47, Reply)

I did go into a bakery once...
Somewhere in London. All I wanted was a loaf of bread.
( ArthurTheRat, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 18:10, Reply)

Used to start them as kids on the support stanchion of a suspension bridge in cork
we'd collect up flammable rubbish and set it alight (not enough material to damage the bridge though - it'd have to have somehow climbed 30 feet of concrete-clad stone to reach the wood anyway).

the game was to then try to get past the fire on the foot wide path around the base of the stanchion, without getting burned or falling into the river.

None of us died, so it can't have been that stupid - if you caught fire, you could fall in the river, and if you couldn't swim, the fire would jump in and save you. Yup.
( WhoElse I'm what Willis was talking about, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 17:55, Reply)

rats cocks 2
Another "friend" of mine snuck into the family home one night after a solid night on the razz. The usual scenario played itself out - suasages under the grill, increasing urge to close ones eyes, unoticed fire blazing inthe kitchen. The other member of the house heard the fire alarm and promptly legged it outside after summoning the fire brigade. When they arrived they asked if there was anyone else in the house, only then did the little broither pipe up "I think I heard someone coming in 1/2 an hour ago". The boys heroically charged back into the blazing house, only to find "my friend" in a fitful slumber on the couch. After hualing his ample frame out of the now flame engulf house they put him in the back of an ambulance. Try to imaging this. Your last memory was putting a few bangers under the grill and sitting down in the livingroom, now in a flash, your in the back of an ambulance with several uniformed men shouting at you. What do you do? You strike the nearest one to you of course. After several minute of violent fist fighting with the men who had saved his life he was restrained with leather straps on the stretcher. His Dad looked down upon him with a mixture of pity, shame and rage, the last embers of his charred house reflected in his eyes.
(Smell eep!, Thu 4 Mar 2004, 13:23, Reply)

I can beat you all
My friend liam linch was bedding a lama one night when his x emu wanderd in declaring her love for him. Liam decided enough was enough and to get the emu out of his system he took a box of matches some parafin and a soiled copy of playboy to the bathroom.

Can you guess what happened next? Yes he burnt the emu and had a wank.
([email protected]/Dude.xml, Thu 4 Mar 2004, 9:21, Reply)

blasting powder
My great uncle was Italian. In his youth (that is the 1930s) he worked on the roads in the alps, blasting through rock to cut proper roads where once there had only been donkey paths. He died in the late 80s leaving a tumbledown farmhouse in a rather sweet alpine balley behind him.

Exploring it last year, we ventured into a small attic space we'd never found before (we've been in and about the place since we were kids, and never been up there before). Amongst the crap was a big wooden box full of 2kg paper sacks marked something like "Società esplosiva di Torino" and full of what looked like shiny gravel.

Not sure entirely what it was (but counting on haivng uncommon fun) we poured a small amount out on the ground and lit it (as you do) - it glowed white so bright it burned your eyes and then went out.

"Fucking great" we said - homemade fireworks - lets see what happens when we pour a rather large pile out and chuck a lump of glowing charcoal at it. What happened was (i) short pause (ii) brillaint white light (iii) the most monumental boom echoing down the valley (iv) bits of shit flying everwhere (thankfully there was a small wall to jump behind) (v) mushroom cloud about 40 ft in air (vi) hole in ground where tarmac had been.

We spent the next couple of hours shitting ourselves, paranoid that the Italian police would be down on us as some sort of mad alpine terrorists. And dumped the rest of the blasting granules into the river for safety. Thank goodness no-one had a fag lit when we found the box-full...what on earth he'd been doing stockpiling it for 50 years, I don't know...
( automatton52 Grumpy old goth, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 22:22, Reply)

Sort of
My flatmate leaving a frying pan with a shallow covering of oil on the hob for too long resulted in a fire in my kitchen in halls a few years back. I announced the fire when I walked in with a casual comment to him as his back was turned to the inferno. His response was as nonchalant as mine as he turned round, looked at it for a couple of seconds and went "oh". We kind of decided that the fire was best put out. I thought the the fire blanket (provided in every kitchen) was a good start so I whipped out the blanket and smothered the pan thinking it would go out. the flames seemed to get brighter if anything and due to the warmth I felt, I moved back. As the oxgen got to the underside of the blanket it too set alight. I was somewhat taken aback that this alledgedly fireproof blanket was now on fire and we still had a flame filled frying pan. I ran around the kitchen with a buring blanket and my friend laughed while he dampened a tea towel and placed it over the frying pan, immediately extinguishing the fire meanwhile I hopped up and down on the fireblanket trying to put that out.

No damage other than a bit of soot on the ceiling and a knackered fire blanket.

We did chuckle when we had to go and ask for a new fire blanket and explained that we had burnt the last one.
(||lll||ll||lll|| ||lll||ll||lll||, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 20:09, Reply)

fire
It all happened about 5 years ago, while I was living in halls in edinburgh. There were about 6 or 7 of us sitting in this small rom in halls smoking, all a bit the worse for wear. My friend Radi (tall skinny bloke, always stoned and never moves quickly) was sitting cross legged filling up his lighter with the can of gas and lighter balanced between his knees. His girlfriend was sitting next to him, playing with a lighter. Anyway, Radi slips, and gets a big damp patch of lighter gas on his trousers, in the groin area.
Colin, then said, as a joke "oh just burn it off".
Immediatley Radis girlfriend leaned over and sparked the lighter, setting fire to her boyfriends crotch. The flames were a good 60cm high, with a line of fire from knee to knee.
Radi started screaming and flailing his arms. His girlfriend saw that her byfriends crotch was going up in flames, and thought this a bad thing. She decided to put out the fire, but with her fists. So radi has big flames coming out of his crotch, and is being punched in the balls by his girlfriend. an image I will never forget. Once the flames were out, all was silent for about half a minute, when all the girls in the room started to giggle. None of the blokes thought it was funnny - more scary.
(blank, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 13:31, Reply)

Dyson didn't see that one coming
Some people spend ages cleaning and looking after their first car's with a pride that they wouldn't exhibit for any other durable - me, I'm a slob and would personally rather buy a new car than clean out my existing one. Anyhoo, at 19 I wasn't rich and couldn't take that route so after several complaints about the state of the motor (e.g. all the footwells were piled high with empty cigarette packets) I decided that it needed a spring clean.

Whilst cleaning out the motor and checking the rubbish for any worth keeping I had one of those life changing moments - I found a spare fag hidden in a discarded packet - hurrah! So I after visiting marlboro country I put out the fag and got my mum's brand new Dyson and started hoovering out the car. During this act, I hoovered out he ash tray, which unbenown to me, still contained the lit dogend. The Dyson efficiently sucked the dogend up and I continued to beaver away.

Almost finished I noticed a strong burning smell - turning around I saw the Dyson consumed in some quite specutalur flames reaching about 15 foot high. Basically, one half lit fag end + a load of combustible fluff + vast amounts of injected air inside a contained atmosphere is a really good place for a fire to have a load of fun. Anyway, Mummy wasn't happy with her now severely melted Dyson and I wasn't particularly chuffed about half the paint that had been stripped away on one side of my Nova. Ironically, a car valetter would have cost £10 rather than £200 for a new hoover and two weekends sorting out the paintwork.
(drydo, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 12:02, Reply)

Stoned student
When I was at Uni we tended to smoke a fair amount of spliffs. One of the main evening entertainments was in trying to persuade each other to do menial tasks like make tea or go to the shop when we were all too stoned to bother.
One day one of the girls who shared our house came into the living room, screamed at the sight of flames running up the curtains, ripped them down and ran them out to the kitchen sink. When she came in to see three of us just sat there she (reasonably) completely flipped out. "Why were you all just sitting there watching the curtains burn?" She yelled ...

"We were arguing over who's job it was to put them out ..."
(martin_e, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 9:46, Reply)

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the fire, No we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it.

Josef stalin malenkov nasser and prokofiev, rockefeller campanella communist bloc. Roy cohn juan peron toscanini, dacron svenno james dean status quo, furtive bear JFK blown away. What else do I have to say?

We didn't start the fire...
( Andy_R At the third stroke, the time will be precisely, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:28, Reply)

Never mine, but I always seem to be around.
Back in High School science class our teacher would often leave the class alone for 10-20 minutes. So my classmates in the back would often get bored. One day they happened to have a bottle of liquid cement (it was a very flammable kind of glue) anyways they decided it would be fun to light it on fire. The thing that they realized after they lit the thing on fire was that the bottle for the liquid cement was made out of plastic, not glass. So the glue on fire quickly melted the plastic bottle which caused the glue to spill out onto the table and cover their books in flaming glue. The teacher finally ran back into the room and grabbed a fire extinguisher and stopped the fire. But not before the table and books had been destroyed.

Another story but from my friend. She was driving her Lotta down the road and she noticed that it was starting to smoke, so she thought that it maybe was just overheating so she pulled into the nearest gas station to phone her Dad to come and fix her car. So she parked her car and went into the gas station and got a drink and tried phoning her dad. When she came back out she saw that there was a lot of smoke coming out from her car and there was also flames now coming out. Soon her car was engulfed in flames. The gas station was surrounded by a dry field of grass. So the flames from her car started the field on fire. The gas station that she was at was located pretty far from any fire station, so by the time that the firemen got there her car was just smoldering. It had pretty much melted and the field was still on fire. The firemen covered the entire gas station in white foam and many of the people who had been at the gas station questioned my friend “Why would you park a car that is on fire at gas station?”
(dincauze, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 20:11, Reply)

Not my fault but..
.. Daft nextdoor neighbour had spent all weekend cladding his house with some shiny uPVC panels, he'd even bought a brand new ladder to reach the high parts. Having finished the job he decides to run the offcut plastic through his standard waste disposal routine and burn it in the garden. My family sat indoors watching the GREEN flames and black smoke engulf the entire neighbourhood whilst my Mum fretted about out new garden fence that had cost oh-so-much just three weeks previously.

You know what's coming don't ya? The green flames caught his shed, which caught our fence which caused my parents to almost combust themselves! I rushed outside to play fireman with the garden hose whilst my dad played firechief by making sure I doused the fence and swearing when I foolishly tried to stop the flames which were creeping up my nieghbours house.

By the time the fire brigade arrived tins of paint had begun to explode inside the burning shed and the neighbour's roof was well ablaze. It took a while to get under control and the guy nextdoor received a massive bollocking from the local 'Guv'.

"You left a fire unattended!?!?"
"No, I went to make a cuppa tea"
"Whilst leaving the fire unattended?"
"No, really, just a cup of tea"
etc.
etc.

PS. His new ladder melted in the shed, the firmen pulled out a solidified puddle of aluminium with two rungs sticking out the top.
(castro, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 19:01, Reply)

ME and my mates decided to make a morter. So off we go to tesco and the local diy shop, buying cans of hair spray, drain pipes, blow torch and butane cans, firelighters, asked if we're up to anything dodgy we replied "no" :)

Dug a hole in the ground, put plastic pipe in it, set fire to the bottom with the firelighters and put a can of hairspray at the bottom, then got my friend to shoot the can with an air rifle at rather close range. Unfortunatly he is fine and still blowing things up.

This thing gave off one hell of a draught, it was cold out, and the blast of hot hairspray smelling air warmed us right up. If you look at the pic you can see the can actually launching into the air, this was our only sucessful attempt, it wentt about 40 foot into the air. Was really cool

Edit: Don't try this at home?



click me for a bigger version
(gerg, Fri 5 Mar 2004, 4:10, Reply)

In my mouth.
I was attempting to light matches on my teeth (like John Wayne) when the tip of the match ignited, broke off and fell between gum and bottom lip. The sensation was like being squrted with fire from my gums. This lasted lasted 3 seconds; then a second of panic before the pain kicked in and stayed for some time.

My front lower lip looked deseased for a good month afterwards. However as everyone had worse acne than me at the time I didn't really stand out.

Success.
( Your Mum, Thu 4 Mar 2004, 17:04, Reply)

I was fire breathing once
when I confused the relatively safe liquid paraffin, for the decidedly unsafe acetone. My first thought was I had better move out of the way of this large blue fireball. My second thought was I am the large blue fireball. Later that night I told the nurse in casualty that I loved her and would she have my babies. She replied that I was in shock.
(Cousin It, Thu 4 Mar 2004, 1:18, Reply)

Actual interesting story about chemistry from an arrogant twat...
Seeing as chemistry lessons are as boring as buggery so to speak, normally various attempts are made to liven things up. But this was no ordinary 'set fire to some chemicals unhhh' kinda tale, this was the most cunning and brilliant chemistry plan ever devised. A Bunsen burner has a little ring shaped groove around the top just around where the flame comes out. this ring was just big enough to hide a coil of magnesium.
So the teacher's big experiment for the day comes around, so he leaves his other one alone for a while. He sets about lighting his doctored Bunsen burner and is promptly blinded for a few minutes by an eyeball ravishing white light. He then stumbles around and forgets about his other little experiment which sets on fire too. The whole class pisses itself. The end
(lifelikeandposeable, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 17:34, Reply)