Oven fire
When I was at uni in Wolverhampton, our oven caught fire and I noticed when I got in and the smoke alarms had failed to go off and the entire house was full of smoke, but no-one upstiars noticed. When I opened the oven door the flames licked out and burned my face and the girls from upstairs came running down. They called the fire brigade and once I had got the fire out they arrived.

As I was being bundled into an ambulance to go to the burns unit for my hands and face I heard the fireman in the white helmet (Guv i think his name was) tell Kate that the oven caught fire because it wasn't clean and she should get down on her hands and knees and clean it sometime cos it's womans work!
(_earwaxuk_, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 8:11, Reply)

Once had my pillow catch fire


...during sex
(retro, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 4:55, Reply)

Fire starter at the bank
I once was going into a bank and stubbed my cigarette out on the side of a trash can and threw the cigarette in and went into the bank. When I came out of the bank there was a fire truck extinguishing the bin that was on fire.
(Master_Nov, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 3:38, Reply)

Fire
I wanted to have some melted chocolate for some reason but only had a hershey kiss. So i unwrapped it, put it on its foil, and put all of this on a paper towel (i didn't want to get chocolate on the inside of the microwave). well, the foil is obviously metal and sparked and cought the paper towel on fire which made the place smell very very badly. Luckily i just blew out the flame.
(britishbroccoli, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 3:09, Reply)

The best thing you can ever do with an empty champagne bottle.
1. Get an empty champagne bottle (or any wine bottle with similarly sloped shoulders).
2. Get a cigarette lighter and turn it up so the gas jet is really strong.
3. Turn out the lights (this trick looks better in the dark)
4. Squirt gas from the lighter into the bottle for about 15 seconds.
5. Stand the bottle on the table/floor.
6. Light the top of the bottle!

What happens? You get a nice blue flame sitting over the bottle opening. It gradually gets smaller and smaller, and then suddenly it goes WHOOP! down to the bottom of the bottle. It really does make that noise.
( Purple Martin is board sigless, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 2:42, Reply)

I used to mess about with candles a lot
when i was quite little, melting wax and making patterns with it and so on. One night I was left to my own devices - mum was out and dad was in the bath upstairs. Brought out the candles and the lighter, got a little too entranced by the pretty flamey-flame, leant too close to the candle... today, some 15 years later, dad still regales us with the "hilarious" story of me running up the stairs screaming "Dad dad, my hair's on fire!!"
The hilarity!
(pomegranate, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 1:26, Reply)

I started a fire unintentionally
When I was 4 or 5, my parents gave me a tape recorder for my birthday. The Tape recorder took four very large batteries to make it work, and I went throug a lot of those, so dad (being an Electronic Engineer) went off and made me a rechargeable battery pack that weighed twice as much as the damn tape recorder did, but lasted for HOURS.

All went well until one day, when I was playing with it on my bed. The cable connecting the battery to the tape recorder suddenly started smoking, the plastic on it melting, and then a small flame appeared....

I panicked, knew that fire on my bed was bad, so I lifted the unit wholesale with the intention on taking it outside.

Unfortunately, the cable was completely engulfed with flames by the time I got to the top of the stairs, so I dumped the unit on the carpet, and legged it down past my mum yelling "FIRE! FIRE UPSTAIRS!" at the top of my voice, and out to the water butt in the garden to fill a bucket of water.

By the time mum had gone upstairs, the cable had burned itself out. I joined her a minute or so later with as much water as I could carry at such a feeble age, and we just sat there inspecting the nice big singe in the carpet where I'd left the potential inferno. Shame it had been only been laid a mere month beforehand.

Dad got a right bollocking from mum when he got home (cable just wasn't rated for the power the tape recorder needed to draw). The singed carpet was trimmed down and really didn't look that bad afterwards.

But then, it was a hideous brown colour I've never liked. It's still there 23 years later. My parents have NO taste.
(Glis, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 1:26, Reply)

Please.....
....Don't start any more fires....I work on a burns unit(the web alias should give away which one, if you can be arsed putting in the searchage) and I have enough work already as most of you bastards live in the area we take referrals from...and if you're not diconcerted enough by that...I am related to the 100%s and they know where you all live if I end up treating you...
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 1:22, Reply)

The Jolly Rogers Cookbook...
has a lot to answer for. One disaster occurred after gently heating sodium nitrate and sugar in a pan until it melted together to make smokebombs. I ended-up with a hockeypuck sized 'bomb' in a pan and a spoon used as the stirrer coated in residue. After retiring upstairs to my bedroom I sat the pan on the bed and could only resist the temptation to do something completely spastic for so long.
So I decided to burn the residue off the spoon and marvel at it crackling and spitting in an enthralling fashion. Until it spat a spark straight onto the hockeypuck and ignited the fucker.
Cue 4 foot white and purple flame rapidly filling by room with smoke. Cue lumps of incandescent material spitting onto bedsheets. Cue me lifting scorching hot pan to place on non-flammable surface. It took 4 hours to clear my room, all the while praying my old man wouldn't come upstairs. Or go outside and look up at the strangely opaque windows with smoke billowing out. My hands after carrying the pan were covered in enormous blisters for a week and a half as well that could squirt pus up to 6 feet away.
*BELM*
(rubberducky, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 1:09, Reply)

A few years ago
I was in the habit of sitting infront of my fan-heater on the floor, under a towel after a night out, having a last fag before going to bed. One night I came home and went through the usual routine, but fell asleep in the process.

I came to, very drowsily wondering what the uncomfortable sensation in my leg was. It got less and less comfortable, then suddenly turned into a sharp pain. I opened my eyes and realised that the towel I was under had blocked the fan heater and caught fire. I screamed loudly in shock and jumped up, then realising that my trousers were also on fire. I managed to rip off the blazing strides, and jumped up and down on them and the towel in some panic, shouting all the while.

I escaped without serious injury, but needless to say was not popular with my housemates for almost burning everyone to death in the middle of the night. I no longer have a fan heater.
( crab_bloke), Wed 3 Mar 2004, 1:03, Reply)

chocolate cake
Back in my uni days (shortly after the invention of the combustion engine) I had memorised the recipe for chocolate cake and would make it when I returned from the pub and was a bit peckish. One night I was rather hungry and more than a bit pissed and decided to make a cake. I put it in the oven and then promptly passed out.

I was awoken several hours later by my flatmates and several concerned neighbours with smoke billowing out of the flat and the kitchen on fire.

I'm not allowed to make it anymore :-(
(kiwi damo, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 1:01, Reply)

apple bomb...
... is exactly what it sounds like. i hollowed out an apple, let it dry a little, and stuffed it full of dead leaves and napkins wet with oil. lit three matches and poked them in; it smoked a little and then exploded out the side of the thing.

being an apple, it didn't smell too bad.
(clumsyassassin, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:49, Reply)

We made thermite
Iron Oxide powder + Aluminium Powder + magnesium tape fuse = THERMITE
( SiX and his hat, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:40, Reply)

fires i have lit
1. School books at end of term.
2. Black bin bags. (they make a funny noise and if you hang them from a tree it looks like it's raining fire)
3. Friends lips. By giving him a cigarette that had a 2 inch strip of magnesium pushed into it, thereby causing the entire cigarette to combust in a second. Whilst it was in his mouth.
4. Numerous spray liquids, (deodorant, WD40, ant killer) as well as testing the combustability of (amongst others) hair gel, toothpaste, shampoo, aftershave, nail polish, nail polish remover, tippex, pritt stick, araldite, sugar, digestives, flour, custard powder and many more.
( fishsticks, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:37, Reply)

as a small child,i didn't actually start it,but...
one fine day,i was sitting in our sunroom with my mother,listening to folk records on our new record player(it was the 70s,all right?). it was a beautiful sunny day and we were really enjoying ourselves when suddenly the record began to slow down and lovely,bright flames began to shoot out of the top of the machine(maybe it didn't like Joan Baez?).fortunately we had the french doors that lead to the patio wide open;cool as can be,my mum pushed me aside,chucked the flaming thing onto the patio and turned the hose on it. the next day she took it back and got a refund!
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:30, 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)

tip:
dont decide to get wild with your girl when there are candles alight near the bed...was in the throes of extacy only to turn around to see my closet door on fire!kinda ruins the mood...but then you laugh about it later and have a make-up session
(goorf, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:25, Reply)

I took one of those red griller things
and put lit the griller thing on fire. I threw a paint can in there and shot it. BAMM! Huge explosion. I caught it on tape, too. Come over and I'll show you it.
(Amer3tan, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:23, Reply)

oh yeah
my friend shaun went home from the bar one night..lit a cigarette while laying in bed and passed out. he woke up with a huge smoldering hole where hihs crotch used to be...ruined the matress and burnt the inside of his thighs...and singed his wee parts too...twunt never learned a lesson
(goorf, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:23, Reply)

100 proof...
my friend had gotten a hold of some 140 proof jamacian rum and some everclear. after drinking some - blinded drunk - we proceeded to set things alight with the stuff. best one was spraying doors in an apartment building, lighting them on fire and then knocking...and running...more like staggering really...
(goorf, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:20, Reply)

merry christmas...
We had a fire pit in our backyard, and as usual my friends and i were drunk and burning things through the night while my folks slept. It was getting late, we were stinking drunk, and had run out of things to burn ( my mom used to burn our garbage - plastic bags and all in the fire pit lol). After some rummaging i managed to find our christmas tree from the year before, which was bone dry and still had all its needles...it turned into a raging inferno seconds after i put it on the fire, and the flames were so hot and friggen big that it started to melt the electrical wires from the roof of our house to the alley..mom shit her pants, the firefighters were not amused, and after all was said and done we continued to party ).
(goorf, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:18, Reply)

I didn't, but got into trouble anyway.....
At the age of 11 I discovered an endless source of fun twisting matches into the sandpaper side of the box to make them go 'pop' but not actually light.

I just happened to choose the wrong lesson to do it in, that's all.

:@ (
( blyerkit e k trilby, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:04, Reply)

bare chester
This one time, on band camp (salute all band geeks) we were doing the usual staying up all night farting and laughing shenanigans when one matey decides to start messing with a can of deoderant. He proceeds to spray about half the contents onto his chest and announces "I'm going to do a bare chester". With a flick of the lighter his chest is engulfed in flames and he has to roll around on the floor to put himself out, sort of like Homer Simpson did the time he set himself on fire.

Also, on the way to a club after drinking all evening at my 23rd birthday at The Rocks in Sydney, we noticed there were many bales of hay along the street. We thought we'd see how dry the hay was by seeing if it caught on fire. Boy were they dry.
(heatmiser, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 0:03, Reply)

I didnt start it
But a bin was on fire outside the building where I work today, the amount of people that just walked past oblivous. Dumb twunts. Dont know how it started but there wsa a lot of smoke.
(DJ Skidz, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 23:35, Reply)

yes...
..we tried to blow my mates balls off with a lighter and deodorant. Theres a video here(284k wmv file)
(pissycocks GIRAFFETASTIC!, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 23:19, Reply)

Spooky, this just arrived in my inbox this morning....
My friend emailed me about this guy at her work who had sent an email around the office about his night...
I love the grammer and spelling, this guy is a doctor as well!

Subject: buring down the house...

Hi all
Had an experience last night that I'd like to share. My next door neighbour fell asleep on the couch with a cigerette and burnt down the house! Everyone was safe :-)
Once I was aware of anything going on (breaking glass), I called the fire brigade (already on the way), ran and asked if everyone was out (yes said the gang of "ribberneckers" watching!), and then ran back to my house and used my pathetic garden hose to squirt water on my house and fence that are very close to the neighbours [afterwards the "rubberneckers" told me the flames were shooting across the gap between our houses till it was about 1 metre away. Yikes!]. My hose couldn't even reach the neighbours! :-(

Anyway, after the "event" was over, I was talking to my nextdoor neighbour. She heard them screaming and ran around to their house, there are flames in the lounge, mum and dad are screaming over "where's the cat" and "get the goldfish". She grabbed their 1 year old baby out of the room, ran out the door and that got the parents moving! Now from what I've assertained, no fire alarms, no fire extinguisher, and an abundance of panic!! [e.g. the goldfish!? what about your kid!]. In the few minutes I sprayed water I saw that house (an old wooden one) burn like you wouldn't believe! So fast and so hot! And through a rather disturbed sleep last night I kept thinking: panic almost killed the lot of them. So for me, please:
1. Check or get some smoke detectors. At the worst, it'll get you out the door faster! At the best, you might have time to contain the fire.
2. If you have kids, so through a fire drill. If my neighbours personal drill to each other had been "grab the kid and run" and (sorry) forget the pets (or, then think about the pets!), then they might have reacted faster. I hate to think what might have happened had my neighbour not run in, or the people had both been asleep (the wife smelt smoke and got up to check!).

So thats it. A $10 smoke detector at least will allow you more time to panic, calm down, then react! Looking out my bedroom window at the burnt out shell only metres from my house makes me glad that no one died. This is my first experience of seeing a house fire (and hopefully my last!).

Just some friendly advice from someone who witnessed how people can panic in a crisis, and how grave the consequences might have been!

ciao
Jarrod
(CrazyKiwi, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 23:17, Reply)

Cooking on Gas
Visit a pub in Camden. Take one unpleasently obese man with no social skills, poor hygene and a thouroughly poor dress sense, and cover his upper torso in an imense lumberjack shirt that boasts an amazingly obnoxious colour scheme. Take one disposable light (preferably made of red transparent plastic) and wind out the flame control so that the flame extends close to a foot long. Wait for said fat man to insult you yet again then set fire to the fuzzy layer that has developed on the hideous shirt. And Voula!! a flaming fat man dancing in panic erratically slapping himself in a weird "fat man of fire dance". Wanker.
(Nicky Nacky Noo... Scratch and Sniff Please, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 22:29, Reply)

Fire!
During a summer drought some friends and I decided to light off some fireworks. My friend lives behind a major highway and has about 1/4 mile of grass between his backyard and the interstate. This seemed like a good place to light them. We were launching bottle rockets for about 10 minutes when one of the rockets decided to take a dive into the dry grass.

I quickly ran out to the spot where the rocket landed, but it was too late. A circle of flames about 2 feet wide quickly spread across the whole field. These flames grew to about 10 feet high. You see since there had been no rain, and the grass which is normally about 2 ft tall was just cut about a week before, it was like hay drying in the field. We ran around trying to get the hose out, filling up milk jugs with water, grabbing the shovel to try and throw dirt on it, anything.

The fire then quickly spread to the row of bushes separating my friend's backyard and the field. Many quickly ignited and spread to the backyard on their way to the wood fence surrounding the pool.

My friend was thinking of joining the Navy and had a recruiter scheduled to show up at the house. When he saw all of us running around fighting the fire, he quickly tossed his hat to the ground and proceeded to help us. White uniform and all!

The fire department finally showed up about a half hour after the fire started, and about 5 minutes after we put the fire out. Needless to say, I had no hair left on my legs. It was all burned off.

My friend's dad came home and we all had to apologize for burning down most of the bushes in his backyard along with most of his lawn. Unbelievably all he said was, "You kids are a bunch of dumbasses!" and laughed.

For the rest of the summer you could see this H-U-G-E burned patch of grass next to the interstate.

About 2 wks later I was riding in the car with my Mom and she said, "Boy I wonder what happened over there?" Of course I snickered.
(seiche, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 22:20, Reply)

Poor B*st*rd
Met this girl while out to dinner with my boss. She said she wanted a date. Great, met her the next evening - only one problem, it was a double date with her, her boyfriend and her room-mate. Seems the room-mate wouldn't leave them alone and I was the diversion.

After drinks, dancing we all went back to his apartment for coffee after which I was to take the room-mate home.

While everyone is in the kitchen, I'm sitting on a lovely white couch smoking a camel and surveying the scene - suddenly I smell smoke - "Hey everybody does anyone smell smoke?" - nobody but me smells smoke. Minutes later they walk back to where I'm sitting and they start staring behind me. Holy shit the couch is on fire, smoke pouring out of the back.

The guy sets a really nice silver coffee set on the glass table in front of the couch and we both move the couch out and start tearing at the fabric to get at the fire, someone else gets water in a jug and pours it on the couch, the room-mate trys to move the glass table but only succeeds in ripping the top off and spraying coffee all over the opposite wall.

I've demolished the couch, the room-mate has put a spectacular brown stain on the opposite wall, and the other couple get their wish - I brought the room-mate home.

The moral? Don't date me - I still smoke.
(Fuzzbutt aka Mr. Natural, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 22:15, Reply)

I set fire to my fridge...
...with a bottle of aftershave

Luckily the spillage burned out quickly
( beefandcheese, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 22:14, Reply)