NationStates Jolt Archive

Anyone have any interesting stories involving fire?

It's still fire season around here. I spent a couple hours out on my driveway today, doing a little whittling and watching DC-10s and choppers flying over to the Anaheim Hills fire a few at a time. Watching modified jumbo jets bank into black columns of smoke or pull out of steep dives is an unusual thing. Very impressive. We've been blanketed in soot a few times in years past where I am, but only by fires several miles distant. It's an exciting spectacle when seen from close by, even if you've seen it on t.v. dozens of times, and even knowing that the resulting injuries and property damage can be terrible.

So, pretty much all of the western states are subject to this sort of thing, as well as large parts of the wider world. I figured there might be some good fire stories floating around, if anyone has one they'd like to tell.

I don't think there are any confirmed deaths(though there may have been one fire-related death whatever that means) so I for one am rooting for the fire. :)

A guy I knew once came round my house bleeding from his stomach. He was out of his head and said he had fallen on some broken glass while looking for his dog. I gave him some surgical spirit to clean up the cuts. He poured some on his stomach then said something about needing to cauterise the wound and then set fire to the surgical spirit. He went up in flames. I must admit I laughed luckily someone else put out the flames.

I was walking down the street one day and to my amazement, I saw Satan light some house on fire...

I got fired earlier this year....






I was pissed off, so I burned down the shop. That was kind of interesting.

A guy I knew once came round my house bleeding from his stomach. He was out of his head and said he had fallen on some broken glass while looking for his dog. I gave him some surgical spirit to clean up the cuts. He poured some on his stomach then said something about needing to cauterise the wound and then set fire to the surgical spirit. He went up in flames. I must admit I laughed luckily someone else put out the flames.

Egad! New wounds to treat! I sense a vicious circle in action!

A guy I knew once came round my house bleeding from his stomach. He was out of his head and said he had fallen on some broken glass while looking for his dog. I gave him some surgical spirit to clean up the cuts. He poured some on his stomach then said something about needing to cauterise the wound and then set fire to the surgical spirit. He went up in flames. I must admit I laughed luckily someone else put out the flames.

Now *that's* a bit baffling. :tongue:

Egad! New wounds to treat! I sense a vicious circle in action!

He had big red burns all over his stomach. I had the urge to slap it like we used to slap the back of any kid with sunburn at school. I am a bad bad person.

He had big red burns all over his stomach. I had the urge to slap it like we used to slap the back of any kid with sunburn at school. I am a bad bad person.

Not if after slapping, you said, "What have you learned?"
Then you're teaching. :)

Well, there was that one time I dated a fire elemental... :p

Well, there was that one time I dated a fire elemental... :p

I bet they were hot

I bet they were hot

*Facepalm

I was walking down the street one day and to my amazement, I saw Satan light some house on fire...
It was a series of coincidences. Satan does nothing. All his/her/its followers do.

I accidentally and unintentionally started a small forest fire once.
I also stopped one in my yard once with a shovel and a fire hose, even though i had been playing with jumping jacks and kinda started it myself after one flew into some thick grass.

I made a really big bonfire once...

http://www.cksinfo.com/clipart/cartoons/beavisandbutthead/beavisandbutthead2.gif
Fire!

My grandfather always used to smoke cigarettes in bed. My grandmother warned and warned him about it, but he just kept doing it.
One day, it finally happened. He fell asleep with a cigarette in his lips, and my grandmother exploded with rage, setting the room ablaze. I think we can all learn a lesson from that; I'm not entirely sure what it is, though.

I'm not entirely sure what it is, though.
The lesson obviously is that he would assume the guilt, shame, and blame for the circumstances, and come to revere her judgment like he never had before, while she knew the real reason all along.

I once touched our woodstove by mistake
Had a nasty boil on my hand

The lesson obviously is that he would assume the guilt, shame, and blame for the circumstances, and come to revere her judgment like he never had before, while she knew the real reason all along.
I don't think you quite grasped my meaning. She did not metaphorically "explode," she literally exploded. KA-BOOM! Bits of her dentures stuck in the ceiling, the fumes from her hairspray filling the air, and the only thing left was a pair of burnt slippers with her feet still in them.

I don't think you quite grasped my meaning. She did not metaphorically "explode," she literally exploded. KA-BOOM! Bits of her dentures stuck in the ceiling, the fumes from her hairspray filling the air, and the only thing left was a pair of burnt slippers with her feet still in them.

Sounds greusome...

I don't think you quite grasped my meaning. She did not metaphorically "explode," she literally exploded. KA-BOOM! Bits of her dentures stuck in the ceiling, the fumes from her hairspray filling the air, and the only thing left was a pair of burnt slippers with her feet still in them.

That happened to me once.

That happened to me once.
Did you ever recover?

Did you ever recover?

To be quite honest, no. It's scarred me for life. And yet in some strange way, I feel whole, more whole than I have ever been--as if a schism occurred in the realm of spirits and of earth. My body is gone, yes, very much so; but my spirit, this intangible and unknown substance within the body, has lived on in this world. Where I am now I cannot rightly say. In fact I have no recollection of what I just wrote. ,_,

A couple of the Ash Wednesday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_fires) fires were very close to our town when I was a kid. I remember the air was thick with smoke, the sky was a really weird orange colour & it was fiercely hot. Quite scary as a child.

A couple of the Ash Wednesday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_fires) fires were very close to our town when I was a kid. I remember the air was thick with smoke, the sky was a really weird orange colour & it was fiercely hot. Quite scary as a child.

That's terrific! Good!

A couple of the Ash Wednesday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_fires) fires were very close to our town when I was a kid. I remember the air was thick with smoke, the sky was a really weird orange colour & it was fiercely hot. Quite scary as a child.

Aye, I was with a couple of mates when there were fires up near Blegrave a few years back. Crazy stuff. The sky looked awesome though.

I've also driven through many a wooded area undergoing back-burning. I even camped in a national park while there were doing it once. That was heaps scary.

The best time though, was when we set up a bonfire on the beach one year. Massive piles of wood, bark, paper, petrol, the whole shebang. It was new years eve, and we wanted to do something cool, so we got this paint tin, bought about a hundred packs of sparklers, shaved all the sparkler stuff into the paint tin, closed it all up and poked a few holes in the top. Then we ran a piece of string out of one of the holes, and aimed the holes directly away from our bonfire pile. Then we lit the fuse, ran behind some sand dunes, and waited.

When the string had burned all the way to the tin, the sparklers caught fire, starting gushing spaks out, flipped over, and set the bonfire pile ablaze. It was awesome. We were hoping for the paint can to fly off into the pile, but that would have been too cool for reality, I think.

As a kid I used to start fires down by the creek near my house, because I was, like, into being some sort of wild-child who lived off the land and shit. They never spread, but one day my mom came looking for me and saw my little fire and pretty much asked me if I was mental for starting fires in the woods in the summer in CA.

About 20 years ago I was driving my cab in Melbourne (Australia) when a 40 year old guy with a shock of white hair got into the cab.
He looked too young to have such white hair so I asked him about it.
"Do you want to know how I got it?" he asked.
"Yeah!" I responded.
"I had just gone down the street to the milk bar," (you might call that a convenience store)"When I got back my house was on fire. I ran up to the fireman and yelled, have you got my daughter?"
The fireman replied, "No but you can't go in there!"
"Bullshit! I replied and pushed past him. I got into the house and ran to my daughter's room, covered her up in a blanket and carried her out. And ever since that night , my hair has been completely white."

I looked at him in wonder. "Mate, you deserved your white hair!" I replied

I don't think there are any confirmed deaths(though there may have been one fire-related death whatever that means)

It means a 98 year old person with health problems who was evacuated died.

so I for one am rooting for the fire. :)

Yeah that's swell of you. Five of my friends have lost their homes to this one and I don't think you're being particularly clever or funny or whatever it is you're aiming for.

I almost died from fire, not once, but twice. :(

I almost died from fire, not once, but twice. :(

House fires? Sorry to hear it, however it happened.

The fire near me got within about 200 yards of here last night while I was sleeping, according to Google Earth. No houses lost - just about 99% of our state park. I'll have to take a hike over there this week and check it out. :tongue: The rest of my street, starting with my neighbor two houses down, is under mandatory evacuation since a couple hours ago. I thought about bringing the cop at the barricade a coke or something, but it's the same one that gave me a ticket a couple months ago, so no deal. That jerk. :mad: