I was wearing
my brand new Star Trek t-shirt to a club, being all cool (what on earth was I thinking?), a good ten years ago, I was sixteen.

Anyway, I got a seat at the bar, where candles were lit. While talking with a mate, I suddenly got violently hit in the back by the barman. Turns out my brand new shirt caught fire and I spent the rest of the night with a gaping whole in my shirt.

I realise this isn't a very amusing story, but it was the first thing I remembered, but the whole concept of wearing a Star Trek t-shirt, because I thought that would be very cool, is funny to me.
( PoofBird ~V~, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 0:21, Reply)

My ruined hair.
Beavering away in 3rd year Biology, we had the bunsens out. For some reason I decided to leave mine on as I was writing my notes. A few moments later I notice the distinct smell of burning hair, and after looking around to see who had been stupid enough to do something like that, I realise that it was in fact me who was on fire.

Thing that struck me most was how casual i was in turning the bunsen out, like it didnt matter.
(drviagra, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 23:52, Reply)

Cooker-explodey death
I was round at a friend's house cooking sausages and chips under a gas grill. They were cooking better on one side than the other. Dodgy grill, we thought. So we took them out from under the grill to turn them around, and as we did that, there was a WHOOSH and a three-foot flame shot up and melted the (broken anyway) extractor fan. After thinking for about three seconds about using the fire blanket, we ran and rang the fire brigade.
The sad part was that she got hugged by firemen and I didn't.
( Maladicta, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 23:33, Reply)

I only wish I'd seen it for myself
When I was about fourteen, I had a chemistry teacher (as you do), who no one liked, mainly because she was an interfering busybody, and quite frankly a bit dim. One day in the other Year 9 class she was walking around the lab looking at everyone's experiments, and leaned over a Bunsen burner that looked like it was off. It wasn't - it was on the blue flame that's harder to see. Apparently she was running round the lab yelling because the sleeve and side of her lab coat were on fire and she was walking around bandaged up for weeks. Classic.
( Maladicta, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 23:28, Reply)

where do i begin....
i seem to have grown up with fire. in a sense.

when i was younger i managed to set fire to a track of land next to railway line. i think the devastion raged for about three of four miles. i'm not proud. it involved a number of fire crews from different areas.

i received serious burns to the hand while making 'caramel' - well. setting fire to sugar. whilst in a tent. did i mention the sugar was on a mound of paper? jesus. i'm sounding really dumb right now. but, i was younger. like that is an excuse.

set fire to a bush trying to smoke out a frog that we'd chased. i must have been about eight and we all know how quickly those frogs can shift. blamed it on the action of metal rubbing against metal as to not get into trouble. surprisingly, that didn't work.

deoderant cans on bonfire night. less said about that the better. my nightmares still echo with the booming, sweetly scented rockets that detonated that night. along with the screaming and blind panic of those assembled at the bonfire.

homemade fireworks. for when regular fireworks just aren't good enough! fancy a lengthy police chase? well, stuff a milk bottle full of the really loud booming things found in repeating air bombs and detonate outside a police station. it's a laugh for about eight tenths of a second - then it's all running, screaming and resisting arrest.

i'm not proud. and there is probably more where those came from.
lh
(localhost, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 23:21, Reply)

Short.
Brother was about 7. He wet his underwear.

The buggger thought the best way to dry them would be turn off lights in the bathroom, unplug a bulb, then plug it back in.

Lights on.

Smouldering wee soaked panties.
( Rev. Cleo still alive, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 23:17, Reply)

Frying chips at a friend's (a long time ago)
We were using a deep frying pan and we had got near the end of the bag of frozen chips. So, as we dumped the last few chips on the pan, in went all the ice that was lurking at the bottom of the bag.

Up went a fireball (I had managed to jump out the way at this time) but I noticed that the ceiling was polystyrene and the fireball was looking like it might set it off.

Of course I knew about the whole wet tea-towel thing. I knew how to deal with it. But seeing the fire going up towards the ceiling made me panic a little.

I threw open the door, grabbed the burning pan and tried to take it across the kitchen and out into the yard. It was only a few feet really, so it should have been easy.

It was easy ... up until I looked down to see that as I had sloshed the fat about a bit, the fire was now merrily climbing up my arm as bits of burning fat spat out (the pan was in front of me so the flame was pushing back as I moved).

At this point, I just threw the pan out the door with a bit of a yelp. In fact the fire was out before the pan hit the ground due to the dispersal of the fat as it flew through the air.

The ceiling was saved and apart from a few minor burns, I was fine. All we had to do now was explain the very battered frying pan to my friend's parents.
( Hagbard ... it's been a long time., Fri 4 Nov 2005, 23:14, Reply)

Few people know

that the burning of Atlanta was begun by a Dresden pipe-smoking cow.
(roysin, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 22:44, Reply)

College
During the last summer holidays me and a few friends had been breaking into the local college because it was fun to drink and skate in there etc. .

one day we decided to raid the skip for anything good to burn and we found a plaster cast of a leg and a bunch of old newspaper. Fill cast with newspaper and let it smoke for 20 minutes.

Of course when we heard the fire engines we ran like fuck. We watched from the hill right next door as they smashed the gate down to tackle the blazing inferno. They were pretty pissed off when they saw the size of it.

Good times :)
(Welshwonder, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 22:38, Reply)

I set our field on Fire
I was 4 years old, it was August, and we were experiencing a drought. My big sister suggested we go hide in the tall grass so our mom wouldn't see us playing with matches. My sister showed me how to light a match on a rock, them stamp out the fire. So, I lit my match, dropped it on the ground, and only then realised that I wasn't wearing any shoes. Obviously, I wasn't going to stamp on a live match with a bare foot. Within minutes the entire field was on fire.

I was afraid of getting a spanking, so I ran away and hid. By the time the volunteer fire department arrived, 5 acres had burned, and no one could find me...they all thought I'd burned up in the fire.
(coolchick365ca, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 22:35, Reply)

Cub Scouts
When i was a cub scout we were trying to get a bonfire going to burn our make shift guy fawks...it just wouldn't light!

Window deicer and WD40 didn't help either....but that spare sofa went down a treat....screw those do not burn lables :)
(mrtinybrain, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 22:16, Reply)

About twelve years ago...
Sitting typing at my old Amstrad word processor in my bedroom. My sister comes and knocks on the door.

"Can you come and move your car?"
"I'm a bit busy, can't it wait?"
"No, seriously, can you move your car?"
"Why?"
"Because the fire engine can't get up the driveway."
"?"
"Yeah, a couple of pounds of burning soot just fell into the fireplace and I think the living room might be about to go on fire. So anyway, can you move your car?"
(Wong Fei-Hung - now with added flickr.com (see profile), Fri 4 Nov 2005, 22:16, Reply)

Parrafin Phun
Just thought of another...
I was a young boy scout. We were at a campsite and it was getting dark, so we decided to start lighting the parrafin lamps. These were the old sort that you had to pump, then adjust the wick, then light... I pumped mine up loads, and parrafin vapour came out. I didn't realise this at the time, and I thought it was just smoking, so I asked my (slightly older, although completley inexperienced) mate for help. He set a match to it.

I just remember walking away, hearing a 'WOOFFF!' then 'HOLY SHIT MOTHER FUCKER!' and seeing carl roll around on the grass for a few minutes.

On the same weekend we also made a massive bonfire, and one of the older lads (i think he was called gary), chucked an empty lynx can on it, and ran like fuck.
The mess tent, 20 yards away, had a few smoldering holes in it, but I really felt for the poor venture scout bloke who ended up in casualty with a burning shard of metal lodged in the side of his neck. Apparently, he still has the scars from it, but is a bit up tight about the whole think because he was nearly killed.

Fun fun fun.
(geeker needs a new hard drive :-|, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 22:06, Reply)

'Helping Hands'
Anyone who does any soldering knows that those contraptions made of crocodile clips and magnifying glasses called 'Helping Hands' are good for holding stuff while your working on them. I had one for my AS level electronics coursework, and after tidying my room, left it on the windowledge.
In my south facing room.
In the middle of the summer term.

I got home early one day and my room smelt a bit weird... On closer inspection it turned out the magnifying glass had set fire to one of the curtains, as well as my chemistry textbook and my first year physics notes.

I keep it in a box now.
(geeker needs a new hard drive :-|, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 21:53, Reply)

not quite fire but a half decent explosion
At secondary school the coolest teacher was the Chemistry teacher (sorry, can't remember your name). One chemistry lesson I think we were making hydrogen by mixing zinc with acid (forgive my chemistry skills if thats wrong), we all had a beaker of acid and the teacher came round one by one putting zinc in the acid and then we held a test tube over it to collect whatever it produced then lit it with the bunson burner to make it pop. My and mate were last in line as we were sat at the back. As we were the last the teacher chucked all the zinc into to our acid. It must have been about 4 times the amount everyone else had as when we lit it the test tube exploded. How we all laughed as we picked shards of glass out of our hands and faces. The safety goggles did their job (safety first kids) and I had a half inch pointy bit of glass embedded in the side bit of my goggles.

Didn't seem to worry our teacher though, just advised us to put a bit of TCP on the cuts and scrates when we got home.
( nikdude, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 20:34, Reply)

atomic number 19
This is a story my old Chemistry teacher told us once, it happened with another class...

It was that time at GCSE Chem when you learnt about the alkali metals. Cue experiments involving bowls of water and such metals. There was one pupil however that decided it would be fun to put the potassium down the plughole. The result was a six-foot fire flame coming out of it and the cupboard doors below it blowing open. It sounded quite amusing actually.

Another tale he told us was when he was in uni and disposed a lot of alkali metals into the River Avon. He described it as a trippy fireworks display.
(piffpuffpickle, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 20:21, Reply)

Fishcakes.
After a night out at a concert, lets not mention the band in question, me and two friends arrive home at the early time of 2 in the morning.

"im hungry." says one friend.
"i have some fishcakes in the freezer" i say.

So into the oven they go.

We went into the living room to pass the twenty minute cooking time, only we got a little engrosed in some programme or other.

"Can you smell burning?" the other friend asks.

Que the firealarm going off, smoke billowing out of the kitchen and the sound of my dad rampaging down the stairs in his yfronts, shouting every name under the sun.

Battered much?

The fishcakes were eatable once we put them out though.
(KellieFo zomgz11!, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 20:19, Reply)

Give in to temptation . . .
My flat cost me 31 grand, yet if it's destroyed in a fire I get 250 grand. That's just asking for trouble . . . .
(garrison, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 19:51, Reply)

Grandad!
My favourite story about fire is not from the old chemistry classes where one boy used to inhale gas and breath fire, quite successfully, or where we made huge paper bonfires in the middle of the classroom without getting bollocked by the ravingly incompetent teacher, my story comes from the annals of history.

My Grandad fought in the war, dontcha know, and apparently, on the troop ships they used to have, the latrines basically consisted of a load of seats in cubicles situated over a stream of water that carries your effluence out from under you and over the side of the ship. So my Grandad sees the system, and being the ingenious fella he is, goes to the kiddeminster at the top of the flow, the first one, and sets fire to a scrunched up ball of newspaper doused in petrol. This is then dropped down the lavvy, into the stream of shit, and passes along, singing the arse hairs of each soldier, and supremely pissing them off in the process.

But then again, it might be all bollocks. And that's one minute of your life you'll never get back.
(Elmsters, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 19:07, Reply)

welding is fun...
for uni this year we all get to pop over to the college to do some practical workshoppey style tasks, this weeks being a morning learning how to weld

oxyacetaline torches, rather cool devices that burn at close to 3000c, so handy for melting metal, so off to work we go, halfway through getting distracted by the torrent of swearwords coming from a friends table and her dissappearing off

turns out she has been welding, stopped, then picked up the bit of metal she had been working on, which at that point was recovering from her attack on it, and sitting at a couple of hundred degree's, cue her managing to get a rather nasty burnt hand through the leather gloves she was wearing, hence the torrent of swearing and the dissapearence to the nurse

bloody metal, when you are welding it, it is red hot, which fairly rapidly cools down to the natural colour when you stop the heat, unfortunately at that ponit it is still very hot and takes a few minutes to cool down properly

luckily i managed not to repeat her move, and was lucky enough to realise in time every time i went to grab it, or it had cooled down enough to let me drop it before it caused damage

David
(442, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 18:58, Reply)

Regarding 'Aa...rgh!' by Cunny Funt...
...it's funny you should mention it actually, because every time I see a post that serves no purpose except to whinge about the others, I find myself wishing that I was a Site Mod so I could delete them for the waste of space that they are.

Including this one, of course :)
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 18:54, Reply)

Ah, to be young again...
After the last day of school one year, my friends and I decided to celebrate in the typical youthful fashion... buring our school supplies. So at the bonfire, we got a fire going, but the wet wood left more to be desired. So my friend went and got some lighter fluid. A few squirts later, there was some fire, but it would quickly die down. So my friend, the rocket scientist that he is, went back to the house and came back with a can of gasoline. I remember what happened to this very day in high definition, slow motion. As he poured the gas straight onto the fire, it traced back up the stream ridiculously fast. My friend saw that, and he pitched the can to the side as fast as he could. Unfortunately, the can went off spinning throwing gas everywhere and literally making a rain of fire. As it passed another friend of ours, his leg became doused and he was immediately set ablaze. As the gas can landed, it began to swell, so to get the fire out, we had to commision and old style fire brigade with buckets. Yet another friend, a sort of big oalf that we knew, grabbed the hose from the house and took off running to the fire, and in sheer comedic fashion, fell on his ass when he ran out of slack, not even halfway to where he needed to be. In the end we got the yard put out, and we were able to remind the people who were set on fire to stop, drop and roll, and my friend's parents who were in the front yard the entire time didn't know anything about it.
(Nickface, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 18:46, Reply)

Mmmm Fire
I posted this story on a website many years ago ... This QOTW prompted me to track down the website, which to my suprise is still up! and lo, my story, to more suprise, is still there! .. so a cut and paste of my original for y'all

Well, It all started innocently enough. It was one of those easy days when just a couple of us were blowing the froth off a few cold ones over lunch. But as the day went on we sort of began to build up momentum and on our travels around the bars we picked up a few more of the guys in each establishment until by evening we had transformed from 2 sober guys into a rowdy mob of approximately 12 people. So we end up in Sams Bar in town, fun place .. low lighting, loud bands and lots of lovely ladies. Whenever you throw the female of the species into a drinking session things always get complicated. In an effort to impress a particular gaggle of busty beauties one of the guys, Mad Jim , decides to try his fire breathing act. This consists of him drinking lighter fuel and blowing huge fireballs around the club. All was going well. Jim managed a couple of good uns and had the desired effect .. the busty babes were impressed. The trouble started when he tried a "trick shot" which consisted of him setting another one of the guys on fire and lighting his fireball from their burning arm. This resulted in a huge fireball and lots of wasted beer ( used to put the other guy out). By now the club management had worked out where the bright flashes were coming from and we were ejected from the club, apparently for contraveneing fire regulations , and unfortunatley without a busty babe between us. So we decide to get a few taxis and head back to one of they guys places for more beer. This is where things got worse. Mad jim decides to demonstrate his new found fire breathing skills to the cab driver before he gets in. This is where we all learnt a golden rule about fire breathing , which I am sure any pro will be able to tell you ... " never breath fire into a headwind". Its a strange sight to see someones face on fire you know ... kinda freaky. So .. more beer wasted putting Jim out ... and a change of destination for the cabbie .. " take us to the casualty department!" . Well it turns out it looked worse than it was .. Jim was drinking again within hours and the doctor told us that those eyebrows will be growing back real soon now!!!
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 18:13, Reply)

Another pyromaniac chemical adventure
When I was about 12, we went to visit one of my Dad's friends, who was a research chemist. He had loads of good surplus chemical stuff.

Bored with the purple smoke from magnesium shavings + iodine crystals, his son and I decided to try to make gun cotton. This didn't work and we just ended up with messy, glutinous, carbonized crap all covered in concentrated acid.

So, what to do with this stuff?

My friend came up with the obvious answer (I'm sure you have, too): make a standard sugar+nitrate mixture, add some magnesium shavings, stick the acid napalm on top, light it, put a tin can over the top (open end down) and stand on it. OK, says I. The parents are out shopping, let's do it. So he does.

Cue an hour of alternately trying to alleviate hot acid burns by dunking his face in a sink of cold water, and combing the burned clumps of hair out. Once the parents returned, this was inevitably followed by a trip to casualty, while my mum gives me the standard "How can you be so *stupid*" lecture at volume 11 for another full hour.

No permanent damage though, but it was bloody lucky he wore glasses.

Kids - think once. Think twice. Think don't deliberately stand on home-made fireworks made of concentrated sulphuric acid.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 18:12, Reply)

Lovely gift ruined in seconds...
My flatmate in my final year at uni (let's call her Julie, although I prefer Monkeychild) was celebrating her 6 month anniversary with her boyfriend, and was due to go out for a romantic dinner that evening. In the meantime, he'd left a present for her to open "on the day", as it were. It turned out to be a delightful Delftware oil burner, and some essential oils. Now, this is a girl who can skin up in seconds whilst being a special kind of drunk, so I presumed she'd need no supervision with it. How wrong I was.

Problem was, she had no nightlight candles to heat the water to release the aroma of the oil. So she hacked a candle down to size, and sat it on a piece of CARDBOARD, unbeknown to me.

"Oooh, it's really starting to smell nice now, isn't it" etc. etc. as we lay on the sofas, drinking tea and watching the Simpsons.

Sniff, sniff, puzzled look.

"Did you put enough water in that?" says I, "It smells like it's starting to burn a bit". Both pull heads off respective sofas with great effort, only to see said oil burner surrounded by flames.

Julie just lay on the sofa screaming "FIIIIIRE!!!" at the top of her voice, whilst I run to the kitchen and fill a (stolen from the Uni bar) pint glass full of water and chuck it over the fireball.

The worst part was her boyfriend's crestfallen face when told how his thoughtful and sweet gift had "almost killed us".


'Scuse the length. Long time lurker, first time poster.
(helpermonkey, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 18:03, Reply)

Evil Devil Fires
I live on the very-edge of Bourne Valley (a pretty place in Bournemouth, through which the Bourne Valley runs - into the seeeea). It's all heathland here, and we get a lot of fires in the summer. They *rarely* come near the house, and when they do they're usually put out quickly enough by the fire-brigade. HOWEVER!

This time, I was inside, with my curtains drawn, PS2ing I think when the doorbell goes. I go downstairs but no-one's there, so I guess it was just kids, or there's a catalogue outside or something. BUT upon turning around; I see out of the kitchen window, kitchen door, and dinining room windows - pure angry red flame! As a seemingly mad BA Photography student, my first point-of-call was running back upstairs and grabbing my camera.

Then I got outside (the cars weren't outside so people thought no one was in, but rang the bell to check) and saw a kinda huge fire attacking my house;



Fire Service had already been rang; but as per every fire - they have quite a bit of trouble finding us - so looking along the heath we see fire-men randomally appearing a few 100 metres along, looking at us, and realising they'd missed again. Before they got here, my Grandad appeared and went to the backgarden to try and put out the above fire, with a garden hose. We needed to go back and drag him out before the smoke got to him.

It eventually moved to the front of the house, and we all honestly thought that was it for our lovely house



But alas, no; very borked drainage, smashed and cracked windows on that side of the house, and said side of house was also completely black. The grass in the gardens was kinda dead, and I even had my own small victory over the fire by putting out some leaves. Go me.

But what freaked me out later was inspecting the above photo, someone pointed out that the flame had a face;



Not edited at all! DEVIL FIRE!
( stevierar, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 17:54, Reply)

Cunt at uni
Whilst at uni, the drug-dealing low-life I'd chosen to move in (can't think why...) decided to come into my room and have a chat. We were just talking about random things when mid-way through conversation he decided to pick up an aerosol can of lighter gas.

He pushed it into the carpet and sprayed probably about half the can into it; the carpet was soaked. He carried on talking to me whilst he was doing this, like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. I thought to myself, "he's not actually going to light that, is he?" and then figured he must've been doing it for the unusual freezing effects of lighter gas.

Then he picked up a lighter and lit the little puddle in my carpet.

Now, I don't think the term "fireball" quite covers what happened next, it was more "mini-explosion". We both had singed eyebrows and hair and there was a perfectly circular burn mark on the carpet for the rest of the year. Bye-bye desposit.

And then to cap it all off the next day he chucked a tin of roses at my head. Cunt.
( krang, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 17:32, Reply)

Childs play
My parents had gone away for a few days and me being 14 or 15 was completely untrustworthy to look after the house, so got shipped off to my nan's. Little did they know i had the spare key.

One night i told my nan i was staying at my cousins, which she believed. I met my cousin and we both went back to mine. When we got to mine, we proceeded to play indoor football (the real kind, that actually involves feet for most of the game) and all manner of games, until we started to become bored. Then it dawned on, i had an idea i had been saving up for an evening just like this.

I have a rather large garage and a table tennis table in it. Thefore what else could we do... play table tennis... Fuck No!!

We proceeded to cover the table in kitchen foil (being the sensible health and safety conscious young things that we were. And found my set of Army men from way back when (this included tanks and jeeps and other stuff). We took small pieces of tissue dipped in meths and attached these to each soldier and jeep. What also came with the army men were the metal mortar firing spring thingies. Obviously a normal match would just go out in the air, but one with methsy toilet paper stays lit.

Turned out to be the most quality game ever.

However, our health and safety conscious little minds did not take into account ventilation and now my garage was thick with toxic smoke from the roof toabout 1 metre down.

Therefore we spent the next few weeks with sore lungs and the occasional bloody nose.

Well worth a try, only ventilate the room!!!
(Bobwithbitchtits, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 17:28, Reply)

wrong bonfire night
i was 15. my parents went on holiday leaving me on my own, with a few check ups from my nan. i decided to have a party, word spread, and loads of pissed teenagers turned up. i remember gin and poppers. loads of people were sitting in my parents conservatory and we could see a bunch of people pissing about in the garden. 2 of them came in and asked me if i had any wood...i pointed them in the direction of the shed. 10 minutes later they came back and asked if i had any petrol...not thinking anything untoward i sent them back to the shed. a few minutes later a mighty fireball lit up the summer night sky, an unidentified person dousing their hair, my mums favourite tree on fire, and the lawn ablaze. The fire brigade were called, and i got well bollocked.
(balboa, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 17:28, Reply)

I used to work on a burns unit...
...possibly the most memorable 'cause of burn' I have heard came from a chap who was adnmitted to the unit suffering from deep burns to most of the upper body.

It transpired that this chap was a psychiatric patient, recently discharge home.

He's stopped taking his tablets and decided, as he was cold, to burn all of his furniture and most of his clothing in the living room.
The lack of an actual chimney or fireplace did not deter him from this.

Anyway, fire gets going and he decides that the fire is a bit much and that he's got to get out.
Unfortunately the only door out was blocked by the now raging inferno, so he grabbed some clothing and climbed out the window.

The third floor window.

The emergency services when they arrived on the scene were rather bemused, to be greeted by the sight of a guy, stark bollock naked apart from a yellow plastic mac(now melted onto him), complete with yellow fisherman's hat, hanging from a third storey window.....
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Fri 4 Nov 2005, 17:27, Reply)