Great Balls of Fire!

I haven't told an old story for a few days. Today we're going to remedy that.

Back when we were young, a favourite evening pastime for DevilBoy and his friends (including me) was to build a nice fire in his backyard and sit around it. DevilBoy's parents' backyard is huge in city terms, so we had lots of room for a nice fire. Like many 14 year old (I'm estimating the age) boys we had some pyro tendencies, and this was mostly how they were manifested.

At some point we were advised that a city bylaw stipulated that all outdoor fires either be enclosed or used for cooking purposes, so we'd have to stop. So we mostly did.

Some time later, a fire inspector declared that my parents would have to get rid of their fire places. The fireplace inserts were way to close to the wood. So, my parents ripped out the inserts and converted most of the fireplaces to gas, which was allowed... (Though much less satisfying).

But this meant that DevilBoy and I could grab a fireplace insert, but it in his backyard and have an enclosed fire. This was very exciting.

I have no idea how we got the thing into his backyard (His parents' house is two blocks north of my parents' place), but we did. (Maybe DevilBoy does and will remind me..) And he, Eggman and I installed in his yard got a nice fire going.

That was great. For a while. Buuuut... Little pyros that we were, it just wasn't enough. We wanted bigger, we wanted better, we wanted more exciting.

DevilBoy had been cleaning his bike chain in kerosene and had a margarine tub of the stuff sitting around in his shed. We decided that the chain was clean enough, and kerosene would make a great toy for the fire. We took turns pouring a little on the fire and had a grand old time making the fire go "fwooosh!" Until the kerosene ran out.

The plain old fire seemed so boring now... We need something else to entertain us. We cast about for things we could put in but were drawing a collective blank. At least until DevilBoy remembered that there was gasoline for the lawnmower in the shed.

Now, a mature, responsible adult would know that pouring gasoline on a fire is a Bad Idea. That's right, capital B, capital I. It's that bad. Since none of us were either mature, responsible or adults, we filled the margarine container with gasoline and walked back to the fire.

Somehow we decided that Eggman should go first. We were emphatic that he not pour much on. Not because it was extremely flammable, but because we wanted to make sure that we all got a turn.

Eggman poured on a little gas. The fire went "fwooosh!". Then it ran up the stream of gasoline and set fire to the rest of the gas in the container. Eggman took one look at the flaming container in his hand and got it out of his hand as quickly as humanly possible. He threw it behind him. The gas landed on a small tree, on rocks, on the grass... Pretty much everywhere. DevilBoy's yard was now on fire.

Fortunately, once the gas burned up nothing else really caught and we were able to stomp it out. Eggman then remembered his curfew and headed home rather quickly.

DevilBoy and I sat down in front of the fire, now quite content to let it burn as low as it pleased, and chatted for a while.

A little while later a strange man wandered into the yard.

"Who are you?" DevilBoy asked.

The man gave his name.

"No... Who are you?" DevilBoy repeated, unsatisfied with that answer.

"Oh, Orillia Fire Department. We had a report of trees on fire..."

DevilBoy and I gave him our best innocent faces and denied knowing anything about that. As he could see, our fire was small, contained, and legal.

The firefighter didn't push on the tree thing, but did advise us that our enclosure was still not legal and we'd have to put out the fire and not do that any more.

I don't remember where the fireplace went, or how it left DevilBoy's yard. But it did.

We didn't have any more fires in DevilBoy's backyard after that. Well... Not many. And the gasoline stayed in the shed for them.