More Scouting "War Stories" - Fire, anyone?

[GabeTheRockStar]

I saw the thread on knives. We've all seen how bloody carving merit badge can be. I'm interested to hear some tales of fires gone bad, or just really big, cool campfire ideas. More war stories, Anyone? I've got a couple favorites.

 

***

 

I was finally 1st Class, and the new Leader of the Flying Golden Monkey Parts Patrol. It was a troop that probably no longer exists (all the scouts left when the scoutmasters took over everything.)

 

It was a warm, Northern California summer everning--a great night for a troop meeting. Another patrol and ours were assigned a camp cooking demonstration for some visiting Webelos. For some reason we were making pancakes. An easy meal, yes, but one we were woefully bad at preparing. That turned out to be the least of our problems.

 

One fellow had already primed the camp stove till he was blue in the face. Our ASPL, who we will just call "Steve," was a comically accident-prone 17-year-old. Demonstrating for the cubs how to prime a campstove, Steve began to pump the primer. Several of us, dismayed, tried to stop him, explaining it was as primed as it would ever be.

 

Steve continued pumping. Unbeknownst to him, fuel leaked out all over the concrete school sidewalk, the half-dead grass, and his rubber boot soles. Perhaps Steve wasn't too bright. But soon his shoes were bright, along with the pavement and the grass. I smothered the flames in the grass, while Steve was busy dancing his boots out.

 

Someone shouted something about the Bisquik. Another PL we shall just call "Jim" intervened. He threw some of the pancake mix onto the fuel fire on the sidewalk. Seeing that it had worked, Jim turned a cloud of oily, powdery pancake mix upon the fireball now raging on the campstove.

 

The result is legendary. A 15-foot pillar of flame leapt up through the cloud of powder. The flames and heat were only momentary. But Jim, Steve, a few other innocent bystanders and I found our eyebrows and hat brims badly singed. Needless to say, the explosion, and the frenzied circus preceding it, also ensured that the Webelos would leave on a search for a safer troop.

 

***

 

My second story took place amongst myself and my newfound pals at Bristlecone Leadership Camp in California. Ironically, Bristlecone was the site for some of the worst troublemaking I have ever seen in Scouts. We went three days out of water one week because some moron cut the waterline with a hacksaw and a shovel.

 

Needless to say, we were "not expected" to make fires that week, and all campfires were to be lit and maintained by camp staff. But as fate would have it, I was in Patrol 7.

 

"P7" wore yellowish-orange for a reason. We were an assortment of acid pyros and campfire enthusiasts, to the mutual delight of every last member. On the upside, the fires helped us heat whatever water we could find so we could bathe. But most of our fires served no practical purpose at all.

 

We just burned stuff. Our best fires were made of old logs, sticks, rags and whatever else we could burn. Worse, most of our fires were started by whacking tomahawk heads on rocks while spraying bug repellent. And yes--in case you ever feel curious--those aerosol cans do explode like fragmentation grenades.

 

Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, the Bristlecone admin was none too happy about our mania. They put a stop to it Thursday and kept a close eye on us thereafter.

 

***

 

My two favorite "adult supervised" fires I ever saw were:

 

(1) a ceremonial Camporee fire that involved a flaming arrow shot into a falmmable puddle under a stand of fuel-drenched pallets and logs; and

 

(2) a campfire at our troop's Paul Bunyan trip into some dead woods. We had some scouts who had just earned Star, so we dug a numerically appropo fire pit in a clearing. It was a five-point asterisk of ditches, each measuring a foot and a half deep and twenty feet long. The main fire was a pyrimid of dead lodgepole pines in the middle. We filled the radiating tributaries with an awful lot of kindling, dry brush, dead logs and branches, white gas, kerosene, and diesel. Once lit, it lit up the night. Each patrol roasted various dinner items on the legs of the fire. Some rogue scouts ran in circles jumping over them when they thought the SM's were not looking.

[peewee]

My story happened at a week long camp-- intering the camp site (from an adult leader meeting) I noticed all of the boys setting around the campfire about 6:30 pm everyone was real quiet as I walked by-- I knew something was wrong-- I asked where the other leader was, I heared a few giggles as I looked at the camp fire, all eyes were focused on a very large unopened can of baked beans in the middle of the fire, you can hear the boiling noise and see the can shaking in the fire all bulgded,it was to late to remove the can it was ready to blow up. I moved everyone away to a safe distance , about 5min. later the can blew up like a shootgun shooting steaming beans everywhere. Shouts of COOL, FAR-OUT, WOW and let's do it again, but instead a bean cleanup crew was hformed and a safety meeting called for.

[VentureScoutNY]

 

Good stories! Especially the can of beans. Young boys are always amazed at putting cans full of anything into the fire and waiting for a bang!

 

There are so many stories in my head, but one especailly comes to mind.

 

My troop was camping on a cold night in upstate New York. One of the dads on the trip brought a bag of charcoal with him for us to use with our new dutch oven. We had never used charcoal before while camping. All of the coal was dumped into the fire ring earlier that day, and the bag was left out.

 

At the end of the night, as the seniors were cleaning some things up around the site, and telling stories by the fire; the rest of the younger scouts were getting into their tents. A tenderfoot scout went up to the SM and asked him where to put the huge empty charcoal bag, he said in a somewhat sarcastic voice "where do we put all of the garbage?"

 

(Now, where do you think most young scouts throw there trash?)

 

The tenderfoot scout takes the bag and lays it right over the fire. All of a sudden one of the seniors yells "NO!!" Suddenly there were giant chunks of the bag taking flight all over the site, and some landing on the tops of the nearby tents! Scouts rushed out in their socks and teeshirts grabbing at the pieces so they would not burn their tents!

 

Since than, I have never thrown anything but wood into a fire

 

 

YIS

[CA_Scouter]

This story isn't exactly about Scouts, but its pretty close, and definitely applicable.

 

When I was a kid, we used to go camping with this other family now and then. On this occasion, the sun was setting, so my Dad and his buddy were attempting to light the Coleman Lantern, probably after a beer or two.

 

Well, they managed to tip over the Coleman Stove, spilling fuel over the picnic table, which landed on the plastic table cloth, after which the whole thing lit up like a bonfire. Dad and friend quickly doused the fire before too much damage was done, but in the end, had succesfully lit the lantern.

 

What's so funny about this?

 

My dad was my Scoutmaster at the time.

 

His buddy was also involved in Scouts with his son.

 

My dad was also a fireman.

 

His buddy was also a fireman, and eventually retired as the Assistant Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department!

 

 

[fling1]

The most memorable fire from my rather short tenure as a boy scout was a 5' tall "log cabin" fire. The logs were more-or-less regular split firewood, pretty well dry. In every layer of the cabin, kindling was laid across the logs. It looked like a multi-story building where every log layer made up a story and every floor was made of kindling, if that makes any sense. There must have been more than a dozen stories.

 

When it was lit, all that kindling produced a flame shooting up out of the skyscraper that looked like a jet afterburner pointed straight up. I was very impressed.

[dsteele]

One of the funniest moments I had as a Boy Scout came on the first polar bear campout I attended.

 

There were a couple of feet of snow on the ground. We were all sitting around the campfire in the late afternoon. We were sitting on bales of hay.

 

The Scoutmaster's bale of hay somehow caught on fire behind him. We shouted "Mr. B! Your seat is on fire!"

 

I never saw the man move more quickly. The flames were shooting up over his shoulder from behind.

 

He jumps up, rolls the bail in the snow and puts out the fire. (Or so he thought.)

 

Five minutes later, he's sitting there as calm as can be and we shouted "Fire! Mr. B! You're on fire again!"

 

He didn't believe us. It took him until he felt the heat up his back to move at hyper-speed again.

 

I still smile when I think about that one.

 

Unc.

[peewee]

My last story on camp fires, other wise you may think I'm a firebug. On another week long summer camp while the boys were swimming, I went looking for fire wood and came across a log 6ft long with a 14in diaimeter, hollow from top to bottom with a short branch to one side also hollow. The troop calls this type of log a dragon log, normally the boys would find a short 2ft. long trunk to use, then build a log cabin stack of wood about a foot tall and place the hollow log vertically, start a small fire under it. When it gets dark,and once the fire grows, the sparks and flames peak out of the top-- To the boys it looks like a dragon breathing fire. Cool stuff right. Well with the help of an older scout, we setup this dragon log to surprise the boys when they got back. After dinner everone could not wait to set fire to the log. When I was not looking one of the boys packed the hollow area with cat-tail fuzz and to add a little extra flare--some type of accelerant(coleman fuel)to the fuzz. After about 3hrs standing looking impressive we let the boys start the kindling, to get the log looking like a dragon it takes about 15 min or so. As the fire grew through the log cabin part, everyone was relaxing -- then when the heat and flames started the fuzz and accelerant vapors WELL BANG just like a shotgun, shooting the burning fuzz into the air. Nothing landed on the ground and no injuries. The boys tell the story year after year to the new scouts at camp -- that was 5yrs ago. A good lesson learned -- LOCK UP THE COLEMAM FUEL. RM

[Spiney Norman]

Sure this is all very funny, till someone loses an eye.... then it's hilarious. lol

OMG those were some great stories. Thanks, you've all made me laugh out loud and now I'm getting strange looks from the other room.

[Eagle69]

I have two stories, one funny and one that shows the danger of combustible fuels and scouts.

 

The funny one:

I was at an OA Brotherhood Induction ceremony and the boy who was Kitchkinet bent over his altar for something and the candles on the altar set his bonnet on fire. He didn't know it, but everybody else sitting around did and keep pointing to his head and pantomineing for him to beat it out. He just continued to look at us like we were nuts until finally somebody jumped him and started beating him about the head to put the fire out. He fought them until they got his bonnet off and showed him that a significant number of feathers had burned up. Another SM who was there and was a sketch artist drew a picture of it the next day.

 

The scary story:

As a young scout I was on a campout and watched as antoher young scout picked up a can of gas and was pouring it on a burning fire. The flame was crawling up the stream of fuel and just before it would have gone into the can and exploded, an older scout turned around, saw what was about to happen and kicked the can from the boys hand, which broke the contact with the flame. It could have been bad.

[Eamonn]

I think I have posted this before -Oh well...

Serving as a Service Team member at Walton Firs National Camp Site, in Cobham Surrey.

One duty of the service team in the summer was to build the fire for the Campfire that was held every Saturday night. As a rule Bill, the Camp Warden would be there at the start and once the fire was going he would nip off home for a mug of tea. Bills favorite way of opening the campfire was to stand over the fire, his arms extended and as the fire caught he would say "As the flames rise higher, may our spirits be lifted..." Depending on what sort of mood he was in this could be a long or short opening. The poor fellow had been a Signals Officer in HMS Royal Navy, working in submarines.Most of the week he worked at the camp site with just his wife and his cat. I think he was lonely and enjoyed having people around.

There was a lot of campers at this small site, at that time in England Scouts cooked on wood fires.Finding wood was a challenge, most sites had a wood pile. Companies would donate offcuts and other wood that they had no use for. Most sites had lots of wooden pallets, Walton Firs was lucky that most of the wood came from a company that made wooden coffins. Of course young Service Team members would when they found the odd cross make sure this found a prominent place in the camp fire.

We would normally lay the fire late afternoon. To avoid any embarrassment we would get newspaper and use a little kerosene (Paraffin in English) on the newspaper. By the time the campfire was lit the smell was hard to smell. One Saturday afternoon I went to lay the fire but there was no kerosene. There was this other stuff. The can was marked T.V.O. I had no idea what TVO was. Later I found it was Tractor Vaporizing Oil.

8:00 Was campfire. Bill was a stickler for time and the older Service Team members mostly ex- Rover Scouts, had a date with a pint of good English Ale, so they wanted the campfire over as quickly as possible.

We lit the newspaper, Bill came forward arms out stretched. He started his "As the flames rise.." When clouds of black smoke enveloped him. the tinder wood caught the TVO reached flash point, flames shot high in the air. Bill came away from the fire, his arms still out stretched.

Bill was a very small man not very tall. He had eyebrows that made him look like a koala bear. At least he used to have eyebrows...

Eamonn

PS Bill didn't kill me. He was employed by the National Office of the UK Scouts. A couple of years later I went to take a Campfire leaders course at Gilwell Park. Part of the course was How to build a campfire. The guy presenting worked at Gilwell, he told the story about Bill nearly being killed by a twit of a Service Team member - I never said a word.

 

[ozemu]

Do you remember the old toothpaste tubes made of foil? I recall one that had been placed but end into a fire and aimed toward my Patrol at a large District camp. There it was trailing hot toothpaste, sailing a good 3-5 yards in the air and landing about a cricket pitches length (baseball pitcher to batter) from point of origin.

 

Scared the heck out of me.

 

Not really a pleasent memory but the pyro bit still amazes me.

[CWKitchenStaffer]

We were building a campfire and came across a 4 foot long, 5 inch wide piece of metal with holes cut in it for cupholders. The bottoms of these cupholders were a single piece of metal across the bottom. We put it at a slight up angle through the fire with full soda cans in the cupholders. They were cheap, store brand sodas and when they reached a certain temp, the bottoms burst and they took off like mortar shells, spilling boiling soda all over the ground. Luckily, no one was injured, although we did melt a hole in a plastic tarp...

 

YIS

Brendan

[wyomingi]

One morning, after a long spell of rainy weather, all the patrols were struggling to get fires started for breakfast. My patrol leader snuck over to the adults patrol and "borrowed" their can of white gas. We splashed a little on our fire and then returned the can. Later an ASM told us how proud he was of us for getting our fire started so quickly. It was very hard not to laugh.

[Sylvar]

Hmmmm....I have one of the scary kind.

 

Mid July, pretty dry year in central Ky. We were camped in a field on the edge of the woods. The field had pretty heavy layer of thatch so to be extra careful everyone was instructed to rake the thatch back 20 feet from their fire pit if they wanted a fire. We did that, worked hard at it to.

On the 3rd day of the trip one of our Star scouts was working on his wilderness survival MB. Of course the part he was working on was the fire starting part. Several boys are standing around watching. He has just produced a fine little flame with a Magnifying glass and is slowly feeding kindling to it when one of our new scouts says "I'll help!" he runs and grabs a big arm load of the raked up thatch that was at the egde of our camp and throws in on the fire which is just starting to take off. I was ASPL and saw what he was about to do and shouted at him to stop, but he didn't listen. Sparks flew into the air and all the senior scouts knew things were about to go bad. We ran to our tents and grabbed our water bucket. Someone shouted to the SM. In seconds we had a roaring grass fire that was headed to the woods. We emptied every water bucket we had and every fire extinguisher too. It came down to shovels and sleeping bags used to smother the fire. As a scout I was never more afraid....and never more proud of our troop. When the chips were down our troop reacted with determination and poise.

 

Sylvar

 

[SemperParatus]

Well fire was not entirely involved...but recently we had a scout eat a firestarter - thought it was a chocolate bar.