we don't do the bon fire just the fire pit thing here at the house and at our weekend get-a-way place. i actually like winter fires better.
About the 2006 fire incident, well, two of our neighbors are fun loving young policemen, they enjoy parties and fireworks. Since their lots are minimum sized and mine is a quarter mile deep, back in '05 on the Fourth of July they asked if they could set off fireworks at the end of my property. They had a yard party and as it grew dark, they set off a huge number of commercial fireworks at the end of my property as a crowd of about 50 watched it from our back yard. No harm done...and for the following year they planned another display, with even more people and fireworks, and in the year that elapsed, my brush pile grew to a huge stack...are you getting an idea of where this is going?
We did take back about 100 gallons of water and several industrial sized fire extinguishers, and had a hose running back to about 300 feet of the pile. Well, as dusk fell, people gathered on our lawn, the cops set off the first firework, I yelled to my wife who was indoors, "Hey, come and see this..." and as she came outside, a huge, colorful display went off out back as multiple fireworks went off all at once. Several of my neighbors and I sprinted full speed back to the site as grass fires ignited, we all grabbed buckets and pails and doused the fires, and although someone reported seeing a small fire on my brushpile, we soaked it good with THE REMAINING WATER, and although we watched it carefully, no sign of flame was seen...what had happened was one of the large rockets had tipped over and ignited multiple other fireworks that started a chain reaction....$400 worth of them went up in 30 seconds.
Back up by the houses, we drank beer and congratulated ourselves on our fire fighting abilities, and then someone said "HEY, LOOK" and as we turned, the brush pile was burning and the size was growing fast (dry pine branches and needles). We hastily filled the water barrels and ran more hose back, but by then the fire was huge and we were unable to put it out. We called the local fire department and in the half hour it took them to arrive, the pile was half burnt and we were hoping it would burn down but they put the fire out.
The fire chief called me and my neighbor cops aside, and asked how the fire started, they admitted the whole story, and I said "well, it's my property, and I gave them permission, so..." And the chief asked me, and what would your name be, Mr.-----? "BURNS" I admitted (my last name IS Burns) and the fire chief and his men started laughing at the irony...
The result was, as professional courtesy and because we were taxpayers, there was no citation or fines issued for the incident, but the fire chief warned us if anything like the incident recurred in the future, we would not get off with just a warning. Needless to say, it hasn't happened again...:laughing::laughing:
