Churlish?
I should regale you all with the story of how I rescued a family of four from a burning caravan.

But apart from the mere facts detailed above, I will trouble you no further.

Unless you ask nicely.
( mns 2️⃣2️⃣9️⃣0️⃣7️⃣, Sun 6 Nov 2005, 0:09, Reply)

Kaboom.
Well, I'm not sure I can really compete but just five short days ago since one of our uni buildings decided it would look far better five feet to the right and so walked down the road with help of a vast explosion. Nothing to do with me but it was rather nice being able to see men with kevlar and guns responding to the blast with great speed. From what we've been told it was explosives from some construction that's going on that sparked. Still the views of the site are certainly impressive, as is the shrapnel littering the road and the fact that half the postgrads will now not get to finish this year. As for myself I have just eaten the hottest curry known to man, beast or God so can now only whimper and pray that the results when digested will not be as bad as I think they will be.
(mrbastard, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 23:30, Reply)

Fun With Tape!
My mate Lunchbox (no he's not called Lunchbox for that reason!) decided that fire was fun.....many hilarious encounters ensued!
e.g.

1. Said friend had a bottle of poppers (I know they're shitty, but he had 'em anyway!), decided to put poppers in an oil burner. Cue panic as the room began to ignite piece by piece.. 'Shit the desk is on fire!'. 'Oh crap the telly!'. 'Put those curtains out!'. SHit the bed's on fire!'. Crap, my shirt!' etc. How I laughed!

2. Not deterred by his many attempts to burn down his house, Lunchy decided that it would be fun to set his hand on fire.....That is after wrapping it in metal repair tape (for those ho don't know, metal repair tape is essentially thick sticky tin foil.), and spraying a liberal dose of deoderant onto it. Cue screams of pain, and rushing to find water as his hand begins to roast.

Remember kids.....don't play with fire!

*spelling? Who needs it?*
(NoStrings Tastes like zombies!!, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 23:12, Reply)

What fun we had!
Back in my school days, I was in a chemstry lesson where we were doing a little experiment involving ethanol, pipettes and bunsen burners. We had been told to 'be extremely careful as ethanol is highly flammable.' After a few minutes whatever I was meant to be doing got a bit boring, so, I sucked up a little ethanol in to my pipette the squirted it through the flame of the bunsen, resulting in a little fire ball! Ace thought I, and repeated the experiment with a little more ethanol. Like the budding scientist that they were my fellow classmates copied my example, leading into a full blown fire ball war! It ended (when the teacher re-entered the room) with a few scorched desks, some singed hairs, a burnt wall display and the biggest detention ever!
( Fluffy elephants, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 23:06, Reply)

Another chemistry lesson
I'll set the scene; very short sighted chemistry teacher decided it was a cold enough day to show us phosphorus and it's wonderful flammable nature in a good environment... yes our school could be that cold.
She brought out a alrge stick of phosphorus in oil and proceeded to take it out of the oil and use a scalpel to cut off a sliver to put into a test-tube.
She then began to explain to us the dangers of working with phosphorus.
This, in retrospect, was her big mistake, as the small piece of phosphorus was being heated by her body heat travelling up the metallic scalpel handle (i am guessing).
There was a small puff of flame that made everyone jump and then an inconcievably long moment as the entire class watched the flaming sliver fall slap bang on the large piece.
Cue screams as a massive fireball and black smoke cloud erupted from the desk. Well suffice to say the worst injuries were only the teachers pride and a few sore throats from inhaling the rather poisonous smoke.
This happened in my second year (iirc) and the burn marks were still on the desk when we left the Upper Sixth form.
#Warning# wide message reversing.
(dkintheuk, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 21:59, Reply)

The Night I Set Fire To Myself While Dressed As The Grim Reaper...
In Hungary, on a student exchange, I noticed that all the pubs and clubs were deathtraps as far as fire was concerned - no fire exits, inadequate lighting, unlit staircases leading to dark underground bars, etc.

One night I had hired a Grim Reaper costume, comlete with mask and scythe, for a party in a particularly dangerous cellar-bar. It had one entrance/exit, with a narrow spiral staircase, and a ledge running round the whole place at waist-height with naked tealights placed at short intervals.

Everyone else in the place was quickly plastered on the local Hungarian plum brandy stuff, while I was leaning back thinking 'this place is dangerous, I may have to consider staying sober for once.'

Sudenly, I noticed that my back felt hot. I had leaned on a candle and my costume was smouldering. I leapt onto the dance floor and began leaping around, trying to slap out the flames on my back, desperate to avoid having to drag it over my head and burn my face.

I had frenzied visions of being a human fireball, careering round the club, starting a deadly burning stampede up the pathetically inadequate single spiral staircase.

Meanwhile, the rubber Scream mask muffled my screams and the locals didn't understand English anyway. All they saw was this eccentric English student, sportingly doing the latest British disco-dance to amuse her drunken friends.

By the time the fire was out they had lost interest and resumed their palinka-drinking. I escaped with a few minor burns to my hands and the task of explaining to the costume shop staff why I'd burned the back off their Grim Reaper frock. Sorry, me no talkee Magyar, mate.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 20:56, Reply)

hairspray
one saturday afternoon i was board at home alone, i was about 13 or 14 at the time. Being a pyromaniac by trade i decided to go and search my sisters room for some sort of fire making device matches lighter i wasn`t fussy. After pretty much rooting through all her draws i found a clipper lighter unfortunatly it was empty.
knowing there wasn`t any gas about from a previous saturday afternoon search i looked for a alternative what i found was i large can of hair spray. So i removed the nozzle and started filling the lighter but saddly the can just leaked every where without me realising.
After couple of minutes "filling" i decided to try the lighter and as you can guess on the first sign of a spark i went up and so did the can carpet bed sheets etc.
I managed to put out all the fire and replaced the sheet but the carpet was 2 months old and fucked so i cut a square out using a 12 inch album as a template, and using the same template cut some off an offcut left in the cellar it didn`t work i just screwed it up even more and made it so the insurance wouldn`t pay out. They said it looked deliberate.
Oh and my mum and dad almost tied me to a steak and reignited me
(slimey slug, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 20:52, Reply)

At Glasto earlier this year...
Being thoroughly prepared we took copious amounts of food - just about enough to feed our party of four, and eight or nine neighbouring tents. Among these provisons were two Tesco value single use barbeques, and 16 rashers of bacon. After a good evening's band watching, and a very long night of touring the various night-time attractions, we were sitting around back at our tents watching the sun come up and trying to coax said barbeque into life.

My good friend, who shall remain nameless, was quietly watching these culinary proceedings with bottle of poppers. It is highly likely that he was under the influence of these substances when, reading that poppers are highly flamable, he emptied the bottle onto the barbeque.

3 minutes and numerous 12 inch psychadelic flames later, I tasted what can only be described as the most interesting bacon I have ever eaten. Two other bottles of a similar nature were used to incinerate a tent of ours that had become surplus to requirements. This would have be fine were it not for the high density of other peoples tents in the area.
(thelegendthatis, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 20:52, Reply)

Back in 1666
Me and me mates were mucking bout with a box of matches and a jolly good newspaper.

Ended up causing a bit of a fire

Didnt kill anyone though :P

........
(clarkson4sheephahaha, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 18:29, Reply)

Firewood
Same camp, same mate. We were giving the task of going to search for firewood in the local woods late at night. We set out and 1 hour later reappeared with a piano. Yes - an upright piano that had been abandoned in the woods. It had taken us 5 minutes to find it and 55 to carry it back - a) it was heavy and b) the back was missing so everytime we brushed against some shrubbery, we were greeted with a sound like the angels strumming a harp, which caused us both to collapse in fits of girly gigglish glee.

Mind you, the look on the faces of everyone when we appeared with a mostly functioning piano was worth every scratch and bruise. Especially when we slung it on the fire and proceeded to play it.

Ah happy days.

Apologies for bum hair.
( Dixipoos Bye Bye Blackbird, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 17:54, Reply)

Fishface
While on a Venture Scouts camp (Venture Scouts=Scouts for grown ups who don't want to) early one morning, we were busy standing around the camp fire frying sausages and generally feeling tired, cold, damp and hungover. Cue the appearence of my mate who leaned over the fire, threw something in and stood back grinning like a loon. Our tired brains didn't register anything until the can of mackerel fillets exploded, spattering everyone cooking breakfast with red hot fish flakes and ash.

Cue 5 lads walking around for a week with red-spotted faces covered in fishy burns and one lad with a frying pan-sized bruise.
( Dixipoos Bye Bye Blackbird, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 17:49, Reply)

Fire breathing - safer than you think*
I'm a juggler in my spare time, and have had all sorts of fun with fire clubs, fire poi, fire staff etc. In fact, there are very few juggling-type activities which can't be made more spectacular by setting fire to them.*

At one point, I decided that the (very real) dangers of fire breathing didn't bother me, and got a well-practiced mate to teach me how*. That evening saw me standing with a mouthful of fuel, a flaming torch in one hand, and a fireblanket in the other. I lifted the torch to my mouth, and in an almighty "Thhphbbppbppbttt" sent the fuel in a fine mist through the flame.

...which went out with a disappointing "fsst". This left me as the most surprised and foolish-looking firebreather in history, much to the delight of my friends and other onlookers who I'd warned to "stand back! This'll be huge and very dangerous". To this day I haven't worked out how I used a mouthful of fuel to extinguish a torch which is normally damn near impossible to put out without a wet fire blanket.

Moral of the story: small, household fires can be safely extinguished by gobbing mouthfulls of whatever flammable liquids you have to hand. Probably.*

*No, it really isn't safe at all. It's a stupid and dangerous thing to do, so don't try it. Problems include dermatitis, chemical pneumonia, poisoning, serious external and internal burns, death and social ostricism due to frequent fuel-flavoured burps for days afterwards.
(Not very much gravitas at all, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 17:17, Reply)

Note:
if you are a somewhat hairy bloke (like me) DO NOT light the hairs on your leg with a match in a moment of idleness as it spreads like a grass fire with frightening speed. Near bollock death experience.

I saw a psychiatric patient at the hospital I work at burn himself to death once. He used petrol. Bloke in his twenties. Poor bastard. Requiescant in Pace.
(Small Beer, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 16:01, Reply)

Mate of mine who will remain nameless
was left in his parents house for a week when he was 17 while they went on holiday. Two days before they got back he fell asleep watching the telly with a tea light on top. Then a little later he awoke to find the tea light flawed and the TV full of wax and on fire. Like any sensible person he ran into the kitchen, grabbed a tea towel, soaked it in the sink until it was dripping wet and ran back to throw it over the TV, which went 'bang'.
Two days later his parent returned from holiday to find the majority of their house not there. It wasn't funny then and it's not now, but at least we all know not to put tea lights on top of TVs. Or soaking wet tea towels.
( Zuowan, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 15:57, Reply)

Barn
I am posting this under a different account despite being a regular talk boarder .

When me and my mate Richard were about 13 we used to hang about in the next village. There was a farm with a huge metal hay barn containing the farmers whole stock of hay for the next winter.
So over a period of a few weeks during the holidays we proceeded to make tunnels in the hay, it was prety impressive with tunnels leading to small rooms on about three levels reaching to about thirty feet high. (Up to the roof of the barn)

But one fateful day Richard, whilst playing around with a lighter, set fire to the inside of one of the rooms we had built. Frantic slapping of straw walls and panic followed until we put out this small blaze.

Or so we thought.

A good half hour later sitting on top of our structure laughing at our brush with a firey death Richard decided pulled back a bail to check the damage. Due to lack of oxygen the fire had been smouldering away quite happily to itself and when Richard pulled back the bale the fresh air rushed in and re-ignited the fire.

We shat our pants and did what all brave kids would do in the same circumstances...Ran, and kept running for the three miles back to our village.

We could see the smoke from home for about three hours.

After leaving it a week we went to inspect the damage, the metal frame of the barn had warped beyond recognition from the heat and unsurprisingly there was no hay left

So I feel the need many years later to apologise to the farmer and his hungry cows.

Sorry man, it was an accident.

Moo.
(Jimmy Choo, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 15:46, Reply)

Meths is bad.
I had a shitload of old reciepts, bank statements, etc, which I needed to get rid of.
Aha, I thought, why not burn them?
Security from fraud combined with firey fun!
They lit OK, but weren't burning very well, so I decided to pour some meths on them.

Fine, but they were still going, and the meths had caught fire.
Inside the bottle.
The *plastic* bottle. After a few seconds of "fuckin' hell I'm doomed, it's gonna blow!", I realised I could just screw the lid back on the bottle and cut off the oxygen.
Cue one very relieved me, with all hair and eyebrows intact.

Have also singed all the hair off my right arm when leaning over a fire, and once tried to light a gas-powered tea urn thing that promptly shot out a six-inch burst of flame at my hand.
( Labmonkey last thought about having another coffee on, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 15:22, Reply)

was little
and at a bonfire with the old man at some pub, when suddenly a bunch of shell suit wearing chavs ran past and threw a box of, what we thought, were used fireworks on the fire.

Being a kid i wanted to burn a big stick on the fire, but my dad inisted against it incase the firworks went up.

waited about half an hour before he declared it safe, so up i went to burn my little stick.

biggest, loudest, most colourfull fear ever. fireworks going off in every direction around me, somehow not one hit me though despite being right next to the fire.

i fell to the floor and legged it like a skunk on acid.
( Snorty McBumhole YouTube.com/MinistryOfGeeks, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 14:48, Reply)

melted..
rather than a fire. My cooker is a bit old and the numbers have worn off the hob knobs.
I turned the mains on to it and put the oven on. Hob was off..or so i thought.
I have a small kitchen, my steamer lives on top of the hob (with children it's never not in use)..and kinda melted. Acrid smoke filled my house, smoke alarms didn't go off and i had a plastic coated hob. It was disgusting!


( moogy boobles, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 14:29, Reply)

Well
Not *quite* on topic, but funny all the same -

Last year, my (quite Christian) school had a bonfire as usual - however they let the year 11s make the guy. Being insanely clever, the year 11s had tied the guy onto a wooden "crucifix" type thing using STRING, despite repeated warnings of what would happen. Anywho, it came to the night, and the bonfire was lit from the bottom - it reached the guy, burnt through the string so the guy promptly fell off, leaving an eight-foot burning crucifix which could be seen for quite a way. Smooth.
(Balue Free From Tetanus, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 14:13, Reply)

Candle Fun
For haloween last week i bought a skull shaped candel, on of these cheap ass orange asda things.

Anyway, it burnt down leaving about half the wax, so i warmed it in the overn on a tray a little bit and the squished it all around a twisted peice of paper to act as a wick. I let it set, took it back up to my room.


Lit it.

Started playing doom 3.

Noticed that my room was very hot.

Looked at the candle. Now no more than a puddle of boiling wax with a large circle of paper in it burning feircly. At this point the flames were about 8 inches high. I decided that this was a bit silly and leaned forward to blow it out, knocking over an almost empty glass of water.
Water + Oil + Fire = MASSIVE FLAME

The flame at this point was as wide as the ash tray and my hight. Paniking, i took the only material i could think of - the shorts i was wearing - and beat out the fire, spraying little drops of hot wax all over the room.

Fire avoided! Please take heed: Dont re-make crappy asda 50p candles without care, and dont ghet water on them. Ever.
(Orkran Mild Euphoria Ensues, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 13:45, Reply)

Scout Camp
While at a scout camp, up in the north of scotland, near greenock, We had built this lovely little fire. It wouldn't light, probably because the wood was too wet. Some bright person ( who shall remain nameless as there often on here) decided to throw in one of the gas containers. Ive never seen 10 people run so fast.

Happy Days I suppose!
(clarkson4sheephahaha, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 12:58, Reply)

Flaming kittens
My aunt had acquired two cute fluffy kittens. Cute, but a bit stupid.

Their house was a bit ramshackle, and one kitten decided to take advantage of this by creeping through a little hole in the plasterboard of the bathroom wall and climbing up to the ceiling inside the wall. It promptly got stuck and mewed piteously until my aunt got some friends round to take the wall apart and liberate the kitten.

After such a trying day, she was looking forward to a relaxing evening - candlelit dinner and a few glasses of wine. They were enjoying their meal, when the other kitten jumped onto the table, and, being the affectionate soul that he was, rubbed up against his new friend, the lit candle. His long fur immediately caught fire, but he didn't seem to notice. He just stood there, blinking stupidly, while my aunt put the fire out. With her bare hands.

The kittens were both fine, but got run over not long after.
( Pachey, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 12:25, Reply)

Master of Puppets
When I was about 7 or 8 we had a little shadow-puppet theatre thing at school (a box with some bits cut off and tracing papaer put on the front, with a lamp inside), with big signs on it saying "Remmeber to turn off the light!".

I didn't.

It was great though 'cos we didn't have to do any work all afternoon, and the fire engine came into the playground, and we put the siren on. That's when I first considered arson as a career.
( Calqhoon, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 12:19, Reply)

extra credit science experiment
Ahhh...I was in the fifth grade. We did an experiment in science class that involved heating up sugar until it melted. The teacher told us that we could have extra credit if we did the same experiment at home (with the help of our parents, of course), but with another substance. I told my mother I wanted to try salt. Well, the salt was boring (no flames, no smoke, not a thing happened), so since we're both pyromaniacs, we wanted to see something burn. Well, what else would you choose after first trying salt? Pepper! Hmmm... Very, VERY bad idea...It quickly started smoking a lot, causing puffs of hot pepper to go into our eyes, into our lungs, and throughout the whole house. Couldn't see enough to turn off the stove and get rid of the flaming pepper fast enough...Still can't use pepper to this day, however I did get the well deserved extra credit.
(Psycho American, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 3:20, Reply)

Another time..
Back in my stoner days.. we had acquired about a half a ten bag.. but it was still moist and fresh.. so we needed some way of drying it quite fast. As i obviously didn't have any heat lamps or whatever we thought "Ok, wrap it in foil, put it in the oven for a bit or whatever" but i didn't have any foil.

So we're standing around in my kitchen quite unsure what to do whilst my friends eating a pie. At the same time we both look at the pie case and we think "FOIL!" so we put the weed in the pie case, then put another pie case on top and stick that on top of the hob! however, it managed to completely stink out my kitchen without drying very much of it.

So i open all windows and doors in order to try and get rid of the smell - it doesn't work, so i think of the only obvious solution, have a massive fry up! smell gone, lots of tasty food, but no dry weed!

So this time, we found a big flan case, and we bought some lighters, and we set them so they burn continuously (see below) and put them under the flan case and replaced them as they exploded.

5 lighters and 2 flan cases later, we rolled ourselves a nice spliff :)

Apologies for length, lack of hummus etc
(Black sky No accidents since, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 3:07, Reply)

One time
Me and 2 or 3 mates were messing around in our back garden, we had bought about 8 lighters and we decided to of course set them off all in one go..

They were all neatly stacked and i had jacked up one lighter enough so it would continually burn without us having to press anything.. but i thought the lighter wasn't actually melting the plastic of the other lighters. I was wrong.

I tried to push the lighter on fire with my foot, as i was doing this, one of the lighters chose to explode.. directly in my face. A 2m high fireball hit me in the face. I yelled to fuck and had to sit with a cold shower for about an hour.

Most of my facial hair and fringe was gone, meant i didn't have to shave for a bit though!

Apologies for length etc.
(Black sky No accidents since, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 3:00, Reply)

tried to cook up some caramel.
I was at my swim team end-of-the-year-party. During a boring, useless speech made by my coach, I was feeling a bit hyper so I decided to make caramel with my friends. my materials:
1 small candle
3 packets of sugar
1 teaspoon of coca-cola
1 metal spoon
I cooked the sugar-coke and, weird enough, it was fine. it was like caramel. then my friends wanted some. so I made more. Then one of my friends tried to duplicate my "technique". he burnt a tablecloth, some of his chair, a napkin, and a bit of his shirt.
whatever.
(i dont know, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 1:34, Reply)

sausages of death
bought some asda mega quality sausages once. Name should've been a giveaway to to imminent doom but I remained faithful and stuck them under the grill. A few minutes later it starts spitting fat upwards. As this hits the top of the grill it makes a luvly blue flamey effect. I watched on, in awe of this remarkable light show my quality brand sausages were putting on. A few seconds later there was a mass eruption of fat and a fireball blasted its way out into my face. Luckily i was unscathed and got a great view of 5ft flames pouring out the front of the oven.
Sausages tasted pretty good too
(Cyberpope Oh my god!! Somebody put shit in my pants!!!!!!, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 1:18, Reply)

Purple hairspray or cloud of black smoke - you choose
Not sure which one to choose so here's both. When I've had a wee drinky I like to set fire to things. About 6 years ago I was round at a mate's house and we decided to have a bonfire. His wife wasn't very happy with this as she'd just hung out her washing. Unfortunately we soon ran out of wood so had to find other stuff to throw on the fire. The aerosols were great but still didn't satisfy the need. Then we found the fibreglass bonnet of a frog-eye sprite that Cookie was gonna sell. The most amazing black smoke cloud ever. Proper cloud shape and everything. It went up and hovered over the house for a couple of minutes then set off across the Fens still in cloud shape. The next week it was immortalised forever (or at least one week) in the local rags letter page - a couple of letters wondering what it was and a cartoon drawing with some humorous quip about UFOs.

Purple hairspray was only last year and still have the purple speckled ceiling to remind me. How was I to know if you leave a candle burning on a wooden fireplace that it would eventually burn down and set fire to the mantel. Didn't actually see the can go up in flames but I definitely heard it. Would take ages to get a paint effect like that...
( PagDrag don't think we're in kansas anymore toto..., Sat 5 Nov 2005, 0:58, Reply)

Bin Bag Of Doooooooommmm
At University me and my friends were clearing up after a party and i decided that the best way to get rid of a big bin bag full of paper was to burn it !

I opened the bag found some petrol and lightly doused the paper with it, scrunched the the bag up and went in search of matches.

At this time my friend expressed is slight worries, "don't worry" i said "petrol just burns it doesnt blow up !".

I then tosed a lit match in the top of the bag, Boooooom went the bag as the vapour that was trapped inside turned into a ball of flames, it engulfed my face and singed my eye brows and hair I turn around to see my friends laughing at me from behind the safety of the french windows - "That was'nt suppossed to happen"
(bollomatron, Sat 5 Nov 2005, 0:22, Reply)