A Rural Tale (but True)

[MaxMan]

When we first moved to Palm Beach County in 1978 we settled in a very rural area for down here. Dirt roads, to speed limit signs (the road condition moderated the speed, and no stop signs. Also, no county garbage pickup service. Garbage choices were a very expensive private pick up guy, take to the dump yourself, or burn it.
One day I was standing in front of the 55-gallon drum full of my son's dirty diapers. Of course, they were wet. Tried to light, several times then I saw the lawn mower. A little gas would get this going. Poured some gas and went to light it. I had used up all the matches. In to the house found some more matches.
Came on lit it. Vooom a cylinder of fire came out of the drum and diaper took off some higher than out two-story Gambrel'd roof home. Now it's raining dirty flaming diapers. AS they hit the ground I would run and try to stamp them out, oh, the diapers had a plastic outside, melted it would stick to the shoe. So running around trying to put out diapers with many stuck to my shoes, I finally got them all put out.
I had a 1/2 face sunburn, singed eyebrows, and singed hair which I had to cut to get a comb through it.
The nearby neighbor heard it, grabbed a handful of wildflowers came over and said to the wife I brought these for the kitchen table, uhh is he all right?

 

[C3Ranger]

Glad there was no serious injury or damage, but I would love to have watched that whole episode!

 

[southernbuck101]

Reminds me of a time about 35 years ago.
Large brush pile. Larger than 2 full size pickup trucks
About a gallon of gas.
3 matches.
Made my gas trail (fuse)to the pile.Then threw the rest of the slightly modified milk jug of gas on top of the pile.
It was drizzling rain just enough that my 3 matches laughed at me.
Took about 5 min to walk back to the house,find a lighter and walk back.

Moral to the story.
My gas trail fuse should have been about 40 feet longer
And eyebrows are overrated

 

[GunnyGene]

This is why you use diesel to light fires.

 

[MaxMan]

This is why you use diesel to light fires.

I use
kerosene now, or lighter fluid

 

[southernbuck101]

This is why you use diesel to light fires.

Yes Sir.
It seems it took me longer to grow up in certain aspects of life.
But some lessons learned the hard way are more valuable than others.
In my case,that was one of those lessons

 

[MaxMan]

Glad there was no serious injury or damage, but I would love to have watched that whole episode!

I do not plan to recreate it for the camera.

 

[Acorn]

I'll bet it smelled nice

 

[Jimbo357mag]

My dad being a fireman taught me well to never use gasoline to start a fire but forgot to tell me not to plug -in the air compressor with bare feet in the garage.

 

[Watertender]

The statute of limitations is up on this one so I can tell my devious tale.

When I was first married to my first wife we had a neighbor behind us that used to burn trash in a 55 gallon drum. There was an ordinance against burning in the city so he was in violation of the law to begin with. When the guy would burn his trash he would let it smolder and the smoke from his fire would go directly into the back windows of the house which was about 50 feet from his burn barrel.

The first encounter with him started with me politely asking him to stop burning because the smoke was going into my house. He told me to go perform an act to myself that is physically impossible to do because his grandfather was the one who put the barrel there and nobody was going to tell him what to do.

The second encounter was when the fire department came and put out the fire in his burn barrel and he accused me of calling them. He was pounding on my door and screaming at me. I wasn't the one who called but I got the blame.

The third encounter was when the fire department extinguished the fire and removed the burn barrel from his yard. He was given a $250 fine and of course blamed me. He was so outraged that he was again pounding on my door and threatening me and my wife. I had to have the police come and remove him from my door. He was not charged but he kept on burning and making threats to me and my wife when he would see us in the yard.

I got sick of listening to the jerk screaming at us and still burning so I took care of it properly....

I took a handful of loose 2f black powder and put it in a sandwich bag and put it in his burn barrel.... I was home when he went out and put a pile of newspapers in the barrel...
He lit it off and it went. FOOOOOMMMM!
His eyebrows and beard were gone and and the flash went probably 20 feet in the air...

I never had a problem with his burn barrel again...

 

[Mobuck]

It's been a year and 19 days since I was burned in the wildfire. I have been banned from burning trash or anything else that involves an open flame.
The best trash fire video I've seen must have used some sort of light solvent as the accelerant. The fumes had spread quite a distance and the fire was instantly 40' across. The fire rolled across the ground like water.

 

[AJGUNNER]

I don't burn trash or leaves, but always have a growing pile of tree branches. I usually wait until about this time of year to torch up the pile---not soaking wet yet and most of the dry leaves are off most of the trees. Always take notice of nearby trees still covered with dead and dry leaves. My go to accelerant is now a 3 part mix. Used motor oil, $5 a gallon diesel, and cheap regular gasoline. I mix it in a soup can 10-20 feet from the pile. Can be thrown onto any burning embers and will get things going without the big WHOOSH you get with straight gasoline. Also no problems with flames following the fuel to the can. Another very handy tool is a leaf blower. If you have never used one on a burn pile, give it a try.

 

[Jeepnik]

Long ago I was a fireman. I learned a lot of lessons from others. A big one was DO NOT use gasoline to set the bead on a tire. It was a nice car, but not so much after the fire.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

Another hard-learned lesson: don't mix gasoline and kerosene - you get the explosiveness of gas with the longer burn of kerosene. It's impressive, to say the least.

 

[blume357]

Watched my father do the same thing... in the early 70's... but it was just a months worth of house hold garbage and no dirty diapers....

 

[Wyandot Jim]

Yep in the the small towns I lived in during the 50s did not have trash pick up. So you burned it and took what didn't burn to the dump. It was common courtesy to check to see if the neighbors had clothes out to dry before you burned.

I also learned a lesson about fire and gasoline when I was 11-12. My neighbor friend and I were building something in their OLD 1 car detached wood garage that also had a pot belly stove. Remember this is Ohio and it gets cold. We had a fire but it went out so I put more wood in the stove. We waited no fire so I poured some, well maybe a lot of gas in a big can and threw it in the stove. Yep it went WOOOOSH still some embers left and that blew fire and gas out the stove's open door and caught other stuff along with the garage on fire. Luckily we were out of the path of destruction. We ran in the house and called the fire dept. when we realized we could not put it out. The FD put out the fire and it just burned off part of the roof. Parents figured we learned a lesion that punishment could not teach.

 

[jimbo1096]

I had my brush with gasoline and an open flame when I was in the military. Through no fault of my own an open container of gasoline caught fire in a spectacular event due to another individual using an open Bunsen type burner to melt lead for putting on a seam joint.
I still have the scar from that and a month stay in the Navy hospital.
When my son lived out in a rural area, we put up a horse fence, and before we occupied the pasture, we brought all the cut limbs and tree stumps together in a big pile. I had been told that the Volkswagen engine block was nice to watch burn in a bonfire and since I worked on Volkswagens back then I had an old cracked one. We put thre two halves in the middle of the bonfire and then, since we had some old road flares placed them in several locations throughout the pile of tree debris. The pile was probably 10 feet across in diameter and piled up about four or 5 feet high. I have since found that Volkswagen engine blocks have a high percentage of magnesium, and once they start burning, you can't put them out until they decide they want to. It was right pretty to watch from a safe distance.

 

[Sapo]

A propane cylinder and a torch is much safer.
If your stuff is dry, a candle set to impinge the fuel works well.
I got my liquid fuel education at 10. Don't want to do that again

 

[eveled]

The thing is, gasoline behaves differently on hot days than on cold days. It doesn't turn to vapors as fast when it's cold so its less explosive.

 

[Mobuck]

75% used motor oil(the real dino type) and 25% stale gasoline makes a good accelerant. The oil holds the gas on the material and somewhat offsets the volatility of the gas. Also gets rid of something you don't need anymore(unless you happen to have need for used oil).