aerosol cans+open fire = FUN
Picture the scene....three 13 year old herberts clustered round a Sega system playing Pole Postition....one of the herberts spots the roaring fire in the front room nearby...he also spots several cans of hairspray left by an older sister.
Gathering up the aerosol cans the aforementioned herbert, his eyes a-sparkle, runs into the front room and deposits the volatile load onto the fire.
His 2 friends soon follow him into the room only to be greeted by him screaming 'get down!' at the top of his lungs as the cans of hairspray explode, flinging the Fire grate across the room, embedding it in the wall , setting fire to the nearby curtains & carpet and demolishing most of the brick work around it.

Later the herbert's friend's mother returned from a long day at work to find three rather sooty faced and guilty looking little cherubs desperately trying to superglue her fireplace back together.
( bigmeuprudeboy is using powerpoint or paint...have MERCY, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:51, Reply)

ok, this was posted in the misunderstood QOTW, but relevent.
Around age three or so I was boarded out for several months while my mother recovered from surgery. I stayed with family friends who had just moved to the area and had very thick accents. Their verbal influence shall we say truly fucked up my burgeoning vocabulary.

Shortly after returning home, as I played with pots and other sundry utensils on the kitchen floor, a cast iron skillet suddenly burst into flames on a burner someone had inadvertently left on.

Shrieking "FIRE FIRE", I ran to my parent's room only to have them try to fob me off with the likes of "Don't worry, it can't hurt you" and "It will go away on it's own".
Not until the smoke started to billow past where I was still jumping and shreiking and into their room did they realise that I wasn't screaming "SPIDER SPIDER".

I'll never forget the sight of mother trying to douse the fire with teacups of dishwater (which of course made the grease fire worse) or father flinging that flaming skillet through the window with the remnants of the breakfast sausages flying out of it like miniature meteorites, in turn starting small fires of their own.

The moral of the story is twofold. Never ignore your child when they are frightened, no matter how silly it may seem and always open the window before attempting to toss flaming objects through it.
( sosumi, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:44, Reply)

Not strictly a fire (& I think a repost)
In short, my friends and I were camping.

When boredom kicks in with a bunch of 14 year olds, it really can get messy (as seems VERY evident in this QOTW).


Ingredients;
6x 14 year kids, one slightly more mental than the rest
1x port-a-loo
1x lighter
1x large banger

Once you have chosen a suitable banger, carefully select a disgustingly over used port-a-loo. Now, for the next part you may need to stand back, letting the 'Mental' kid spark the banger with said lighter while instructing him to chuck it down the 'ventilation pipe'.

There was shit ALL up the sides of the cubical and pooey smoke gently wafting out of the pipe.

Although absolutely REVOLTING, I massively recommend this! Although perhaps not in highly populated areas as the bang could be confused for a mild act of terrorism.
(Spoil Me please, oh, please, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:42, Reply)

Burning down the Met
I saw Aida at the Met last week with my mom and during the first intermission, we shambled to the lower level for food stuffs.

Now in the lower reception area, there are two bars and a big plaque sort of thing with the names of contributors. Bright lights along the bottom in a sort of pit, velvet rope, the whole deal.

So mom and I are by one of the tables close to the plaque and my napkin slides off and into the pit. I figure, "whatever. I'll get it in a second." When I looked back down, I saw smoke coming from the lamp and thought, "wow, those lamps must be really hot if they're smoking."

And then the thought I needed crossed the finishing line. I seized my napkin, half-way in flames, threw it on the marble liner and tried to stomp it out. It didn't help that my boots had very treaded rubbery soles, so not only was the fire not going out, the napkin was sticking to my boot.

The fecking thing finally went out, I drowned it in my ginger ale and the two of us sidled back to our seats.

The show sucked too.
(DeadCats, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:26, Reply)

Wish i was there
This one happened to my little sister lets call her vikki (cos thats her name)i wasn't their but i couldn't stop laffin when i heard bout it. Vikki was in her last year of primary skool an they were doing their leavers mass(our primary skool was next to a church an for seven years i was forced to go by those evil twats people call teachers)My little sis was doin a reading infront of the church an she was stood near some candles. She has rather long hair.Anyway her hair caught fire but she didn't notice. My mum waved to tell her to move but she just smiled and waved back (retard).The teachers waved but she just smiled and waved back wondering why they were waving.The priest saw and decided to help. He got up and said "now that was a lovely readin from vikki". She hadn't finished and bein stubborn as she is she stood still until she finished readin scowlin at the priest for tryin to steal her moment. When she finally got off the altar the teachers extinguished her hair it was all singed. Cue me pissin myself when i heard about it.
(torture bunny lives under the kitchen sink, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:25, Reply)

Pudding Lane
So there was I, happily making my cakes in my bakery on Pudding Lane, when i accidentally let a few of them burn, they caught fire. Destroyed half a city and killed thousands apparently. Still I had insurance, so it wasnt all bad news.
(ivebeenhigh i've climbed so high, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:21, Reply)

Not really an amazing fire story but...
Shows how stupid people can be.

Living in Rural somerset a large number of parties we used to have during the last few years of secondary school would be in large fields,with a few tents and a bigish fire. Come one party at the start of the summer, most of us are all very drunk and one or two guys decide it would be a good Idea to throw Aerosol cans onto the fire.

This Idea is not too disimilar to one such as reinacting scenes from the Vietnam war using real shells.

I was standing chatting to a mate with my back to the fire when a guy who we shall call Gimp, because he is one, Shouts GET DOWN and throws a can into the fire. My friend and I hit the floor like felled trees and being drunk laugh like loons at the amazing explosion we just witnessed. I stop laughing when I notice the piece of "shrapnel" from the can lying about 3 feet away from me.

Although I did point out to many that this could have killed someone Gimp proceeded to throw 5 more cans into the fire throughout the evening. No one was injured though which is pretty amazing.
(Monkeyofspong, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:08, Reply)

Hot Lock
During army basic training we kept our pristine equipment in our bedside lockers and always locked.
One of the lads had gone to the toilet, so for a joke we thought we would make his locker padlock redhot to touch as we knew he would return to open it, burn his hand, and this we would find hilarious!!
Using an aerosol and lighter, we fashioned together a crude blow torch and preceded to blast his lock with the red hot blue flame.
Of course this not only turned the lock searing hot but it also flashed through gap between the doors and set fire to his clothes.
Imagine, the locker was burning from the inside, smoke pouring out of the top and him unable to open the locker because the lock was too hot to touch.

How I laughed......I was jailed for 7 days for that little prank
(Axe murderer, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 16:06, Reply)

Vegetarian Firework
www.wimp.com/flaming/

Robbed this from the net (these fucktubes steal from b3ta all the time).

My mate did this on a school camp, but had taken his underpants off. He needed to use steroid enemas for 3 weeks for internal burns....
(Prince of Prance, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:51, Reply)

Aaaaahhh, this talk of butane
Reminds me of once at the beach my cousin and I dug a pit, set a fire and put a jumbo size hairspray on it, nozzle down, arse end pointed into the clear blue sky.

Our aim was to watch as it fly like a space rocket, after all, the principles are the same, aren't they?

Cue my dad discovering us hiding behind a dune, when asked why we look furtive and deny all knowledge of a fire and the possibility of there being a hairspray can on it.

Said male parent person looks over the dune at the fire, hears a slight hiss, says something terribly rude in Africaans and throws us to the sand.

The hairspray can didn't go flying skywards at all, it exploded with enough force to blow out the rather substantial fire and make a crater about the size of our living room. There was glassified sand in the pit!
(Woodgie is back, but for how long?, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:48, Reply)

Traffic cones make great flamethrowers.
I don't have any disasterous fire stories, just a bit of firey pyromaniac fun!

After sawing off the top of a traffic cone, we sprayed copious amounts of deodorant and hairspray into the interior, and proceeded to light the thing.

The result was...interesting.
(meagle, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:43, Reply)

I used to be a bit of a pyro myself...
...but was also very safety-conscious.
Thus, to get my shits and giggles, I would pile the loo full of loo paper, set fire to it all, and then flush it when the flames got too high.

I grew up in the deepest darket countryside, I might add. In a very inbred village. My actions were perfectly in keeping with the rest of the activities there.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:36, Reply)

KFC are bastards.
I worked in kfc during my school days as a cook and the 8-head chicken cooking machines there are pretty lethal. I almost fell into the boiling oil a number of times as you had to drain it out every once in a while in order to clean the inside of the machine.

Once you had cleaned it you then had to pump the oil back in to resume cooking. There was a valve to stop the oil leaking back out, which we usually forgot to close.

Therefore we were often left with soggy uncooked chicken after the oil had leaked back out of the machine.

On one occasion I forgot to close the valve and upon opening the machine after it was finished 'cooking' I was greeted with flames in my face, as the the machine had been attempting to heat the non-existant oil for 15 mins straight.

Panicking I looked for the closest thing to use, which was one of those fire blanket things. I picked it up and when I was about to cover the machine my boss stopped me and asked what I was doing.

I informed him of my mishap and my intention with the fire blanket.

His response?

"No, don't use that it cost us £35."


We also had an automated system to call out the fire brigrade every time a little bit of steam set the alarms off. They weren't pleased after the 15th time.
( Regger, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:31, Reply)

I'd cleaned some paint brushes...
... and noticed the white spirit said you're not supposed to tip it down the drain, nor put it in the wheelie bin.

I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to get rid of it, but noticed that the paint also claimed to be flammable. Looks like a solution, I thought.

Turns out it's a bitch to get it started - the matches I dropped in just went out. After struggling for ages, I managed to get a kind of wick thing working.

Trouble was, as the wick burnt, it was also gradually heating the can of liquid. As it got warmer it gave off more fumes, which eventually ignited.

The whole top surface was now alight, which had been the intention in the first place. Trouble was, there was quite a small top surface area so it wasn't burning very fast. It was still getting hotter though. After a bit it reached boiling point.

Blimey! Evaporated white-spirit-and-gloss-paint fumes go up like crazy - especially when the liquid boils over the top of the container. Great clouds of black smoke and a raging furnace between me and the bag of sand I'd kept handy just in case. Don't do it, kids.
( teedyay, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:22, Reply)

It's what carpets were made for.
My friends and I liked to burn stuff. Especially around the time of Halloween and Bonfire Night.
We'd set out trick or treating on Halloween with our hollowed out turnips (we were to poor to afford Pumpkins) with candles in. And we'd trick or treat until we had enough money to buy bigger candles and boxes of matches. Then we'd spend the next week burning things such as Ice Pop wrappers and school books.

One afternoon we ended up in my house whilst my parents were out. And we had the great idea of setting the mother of all fires up in an ashtray in the front room.
Once the inferno was in full force I got a bit panicky and attempted to blow it out. Succeeding in merely blowing the burning pile out of the ashtray and onto the carpet. We managed to put it out quite quickly, but not soon enough to stop the damage and destroy sections of the carpet.

My parents were going through quite a hard time at the time and didn't notice the fact that the 3 piece suite was now almost in the middle of the living room and not against the wall anymore. They relaced the carpet not long after and I came clean. I thought they'd be pleased that I'd avoided burning the house down. How wrong I was......
( Evil Bastardo, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:14, Reply)

anyone else set fire to the loo?
the scene..first time overnight at BF's..go to loo..horrid smell...fail to realise loo isn't flushed...lit match, throw into the loo, close lid..paper burns, smoke...
realise what must've happened, flush the loo...hilarity/embarrassment as BF's mom enters the scene..end with apologies...and
much merriment on BF's part...
no, i still can't think of it without feeling like an utter twit..
(this week i am mostly - medicated, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:12, Reply)

Right,
This is going to be hard to explain.

1) find a wall about 3 feet high
2) take a plastic game racket, similar to a tennis racket. Balance this on said wall (obviously doesn’t matter what you use, as long as it's plastic. It’s just what we had at hand)
3) at the base of the wall, underneath the racket, place a full can of butane lighter fuel, with yellow top removed.
4) Set fire to plastic racket.
5) Make sure molten plastic is dripping on can.
6) Wait with high expectations

If this is done correctly, the dripping molten plastic (with those wonderful “zip, zzzziiipppp, zip, zip” noises) eventually burns through the plastic valve insides of the can. When this happens, you get a geyser of bluish yellow flame about 7 feet tall.

It *roars*

And attracts police attention.

There are many, many others; but I would probably get into trouble if I told you them.
(Pandaemonium, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:11, Reply)

Fire!
Don't play with fire! I once thought it would be fun to play with an aerosol and a box of matches. One large fire and a next-door neighbours' car later and I had CID banging on my door at 6am.

Unfortunately it didn't end there, thinking that I could get away with it I ended up dragging my family and my sorry ass through the magistrates and ultimately the crown court. I ended up with a conviction for arson. Thankfully the judge took pity on me and decided not to put me in the slammer, as clearly I looked like prime bumming material.

Some day I'll look back on all of this and (sob) laugh.
(johnjrubadub, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:09, Reply)

Another of my dad's DIY
We always got our computer fixed by my dad.

I'll never forget when I was helping him set it up in my room

Me-"Um, Dad, theres sparks flying from the plug"
Dad-"yeah, thats normal"
Me-"Ok, is setting fire to the wallpaper normal too?"
Dad-"um, nope"
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 15:02, Reply)

Don’t play with Meccano Fire kids…
To be filed under the heading “It seemed like a good idea at the time”

Back when I was a young whipper-snapper (about 10-ish) my best mate and I decided that the best way to liven up a dull afternoon was to set fire to bits of plastic Meccano. As anyone who as ever tried this knows, it burns very well and drips globules of burning plastic with a nice fizzing sound :O)

Any-hoo… best mate decides it would be good to spice things up a bit by waving the burning Meccano around in the air. Due to a slight trajectory miscalculation he ends up spraying fire in my general direction. I feel a slight tingling sensation on my right arm and look down to see a few inches of my flesh ablaze with burning plastic. Fucksocks! Cue me hopping around like a loon trying to rub the molten plastic from my arm… and taking a good few layers of skin with it at the time.

Being the independent sort of chap that I am (and fearing a good kicking for burning stuff without a permit) I didn’t tell my parents any of this. I just slapped on loads of Savlon, stuck a big plaster over the burn and wore long-sleeved shirts for a while !!

For years I had a weird pinkish scar (about 4 inches long, apologies for length) that would never tan ! It’s all healed now.. as though you care….>sobsob<
(giroboy, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:59, Reply)

I hardly see my dad, usually once a year.
Before I moved when I was 10, he used to do the odd jobs around the house. He bourght my mum a toaster which was bust so 'fixed' it instead of taking it back to the shop.

Ive never seen a toaster turn white to black that quickly. Big ball of flames. must have sprayed it with some flamable substance
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:54, Reply)

Jim jams
When I was 19, I moved into my first own flat. It evolved into the usual debauched swampy sort of place that most people end up in when they realise that running a home effectively is not as easy as Mother makes it look.

Anyway, one fine day my good friend Bob* came to stay for tea, and for me to write an essay for him, which I did. He had decided to stay the night and had therefore brought with him some clean but wet clothes to wear to college the next day.

After a pleasant evening I retired to bed (alone) and donned my v. sexy all-in-one zip-up-the-front fleecy electric pink jim-jams, similar to a babygro. I provided Bob with a duvet and he slept on the couch. Come the morning Bob was up first and went for a bath. I was still fast asleep. All of a sudden, Bob was banging frantically on my bedroom door screaming “FIRE FIRE FIRE!!!!!” I leapt out of bed and ran to see what was going on. I assumed he had set the toaster alight or something. What he’d ACTUALLY done was drape his wet clothes over a chair and pushed it up close to my gas fire to dry them off, then gone off for a bath….. the twat. The whole living room was in flames and the smoke was unbelievable… luckily I had a phone in my bedroom and called the fire brigade.

Now, like most red-blooded women, I quite like firemen. And I assume most firemen like 19 year old girls in their nightclothes. However if you cast your mind back I was wearing THE most unsexy bed garments ever and was absolutely mortified. They came racing up the stairs and ordered Bob and I to go outside and SIT IN THE FIRE ENGINE. By then, all the neighbours were out gawping and Bob and I were covered in soot from our feeble attempts to put the flames out. I have *never* been more ashamed, before or since (apart from the time I had a close encounter with the police www.b3ta.com/questions/police/page1/ … actually what is it with me and men in uniform?!)

*Not his real name. He has a very unusual real name which would give him away.
(Mad McMad, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:45, Reply)

ah... fire...
When I was just fresh out of school, one of my first jobs was at a furniture store as a “junior salesman” (read dogsbody) Being as this was the late 70’s in Northern Ireland, perhaps working in a furniture store was not such a good idea… (Hindsight,, marvellous thing) Anyway, more of that later…

The store, being a rather old and rather big converted Victorian warehouse, was heated by 6 huge gas heaters (yes daft I know) and a smattering of “super ser” portable gas heaters, and my job on a winter morning was to light all these heaters.

Now, as the store owner was a bit tight, when the automatic starts failed on the heaters, rather than pay to get them fixed, they invented this marvellous system in that you had to light them by first turning on the gas cylinder (those big industrial ones) and then running around and chucking matches at the heating element until it “lit” (I can already feel the health and safety people twitching) these elements where located some 8 feet above ground in each “section” and on many occasions they would not light, and you had to nip back, and turn the gas off pretty sharpish.

One morning we entered the store to a strong smell of gas. Somebody had not turned off one of the heaters properly, and the gas had leaked. Lucky enough I had the sense to lock the front door, and then vent the place before explaining to the boss what had happened. Feeling chuffed with myself I went on with that days work.

About 2 hours later, I was sitting upstairs when I noticed a burning smell, I looked around to see a bed in the department next to mine well alight, (the only smoke alarm then was your nose) I ran up and hit the fire alarm, and went to get the fire extinguisher, ah.. Its not there. ? I ran down the front to be met by the head sales guy shouting for everybody to get out, as they just had a bomb warning, then the penny dropped.

We legged it out the front just in time for the device upstairs to go off big style. In about 30 minutes the place was a fireball, 12 fire engines fought the blaze for 6 hours and we just sat and watched as the big gas cylinders went off one by one like huge fireworks.

Later on I realised that had I tried to use the extinguisher on the fire, I would have been standing beside the main bomb as it went off. Nice. Seems they planted 2 bombs and 3 incendiaries, to make sure the place went up, as they thought we were selling goods to the army (we weren’t as it happened, but any excuse)

So, in one day the terrorists did to the store what we had been nearly doing to it for years. Did we get compo or counselling for our near death experience? Did we fuck… We all lost our jobs, and one of the guys got arrested for “giving information to terrorists.”
( TBL I posted this on, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:41, Reply)

We
used to play football with a tennis ball doused in lighter fluid and set aflame. Indoors, of course.

In the same house I once set the fat-filled grill pan on fire, looking back, putting it under the tap wasn't the best way to try and extinguish it. The gout of flame shot up the window, and a goodly way across the ceiling. The landlady insisted we had "stolen" the net curtains covering that window, but they had, literally "just vanished".

Obviously I still ate the fish fingers.
( FatherJack /me belms, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:38, Reply)

Earlier this week...
I was at our uni's LGBT Halloween bash - surrounded by pretty gay boys and drag queens and getting more than a little wasted on the triple vodkas everyone seemed to be buying me.

A few hours in and I've pretty much lost my fine motor skills, and end up pouring a shot of something horribly alcoholic down myself. Ah well, I think, 'tis only booze, it'll wash out, and get back to watching the queens dance.

Next minute some drunken gay has staggered up to me, draped his arm round my shoulder and given me a kiss on the ear - while dropping his cigarette down my alcohol-sodden cleavage.

Cue a beautiful blue glow with an orange tinge appearing down my shirt - which looked very pretty in the darkness of the club - but hurt like fuck. So naturally I squeal like the girly I am and beating at myself to try to put out the fire whilst screaming "My fucking TITS are on FIRE!" repeatedly and at great volume, elicting the wonderful response from some TV in the corner "Well take 'em off then luv!"



To add to it all, I manage to miss the bus back the next morning and have to wander round Durham, surrounded by rahs, for a couple of hours with my shirt burnt to fuck, still humiliated at having been mistaken for a drag queen. Fabulous darling.
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:28, Reply)

When i was about 10
me and my mate had a big habit of fires. We went in the woods behind my house one day lighting fires and going through all the swear words we knew. Afterwards, we had a load of matches left over and my mate chirped up with 'lets light the rest of these and throw them in the dry bracken and then throw rocks on it to put it out'. 'Hmmm....good idea i thought'. Threw two in the bush and it went up like a fuckin bomb. Shat myself, ran home and hid, but everyone knew it was us. Got pulled out in assembly in school the next day and bollocked in front of everyone. Still, had four fire engines as the whole wood and fields behind it burnt, which was a record for my mates at the time.
( DumbMonkey The penis mightier than the sword, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:25, Reply)

Sorry Madam!
I used to be a magician, and once had a corporate gig at Hamleys in London. I also had a wallet that when opened, erupted into flames! A great opener to introduce yourself, untill it erupted too close to a portly lady wearing a large woolly jumper. Cue shocked looks, cue apologies, cue me using the words 'used' to be a magician!
( noodle monkey the cheese junky, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:24, Reply)

Dont try this at home
Whilst in the boozer an associate of mine lit a fart, we are classy after all. I thought about this and thought I would try it first in the comfort of my own home. 3/4 hours of drinking later I arrive home and the earlier thought enters my head. Well if I am to do it then I best do it properly. Get naked, why do all my ideas end in me getting naked????

I am butt naked, perched on the edge of the bed and peering between my legs in order to see the fireworks.

One is brewing, get lighter at the ready.

PURRRRP - Whoosh

It worked, however it set my arse hairs on fire, these floated up in the air and as I was bent over they set my eyebrows on alight. One even floated up my nostril.

Still a better idea than these guys
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/24/nsabre24.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/24/ixhome.html
(Taco Tickler, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:15, Reply)

AWE - aldermaston
Not me but a friend of mine.

They set fire to something in the lab that they really shouldn't have. Boss gets told, and pushes the panic button. The whole of AWE gets shutdown at lunchtime (no-one is allowed to got outside, so no-one can go get lunch, anyone outside has to go into the nearest building) in case of a contamination breach.

To my knowledge they've since been promoted out of harms way.

Made the national press, as here no names, just an AWE worker.
(loquis, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:12, Reply)

Smoking out the lab
Worked in a laboratory when i was young. Managed one day to set fire to one of the polystyrene boxes that samples are carried around in. Got the fire put out before anything serious was set alight.

However i stank out the whole floor, 20+ labs and offices for the rest of the afternoon.
(loquis, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 14:05, Reply)