On another trip Bill and I and our friends were camped at a spot in Northern Baja. Towards evening we had just eaten dinner and we were getting ready to have a fire. My log cabin tent was in between the truck of one friend and the camper van of the other friend in a slight u shape to give us a little shelter from the wind.
In those days they still made lighter fluid that was highly flammable, the kind that would easily follow back up the stream of lighter fluid and back to the can of fluid. If you weren’t careful the whole could thing could blow up on you. that’s why now days it is much safer to use.
Well this particular time we had been sipping a few beers and tequila so my reactions were just a little slower. Actually not so unusual in those days, I think we did the same thing every night. Anyways we had the paper and wood stacked and ready to be lit. We tired getting the campfire going with the paper but it was taking what I thought was a little too long so in my brilliant state of mind I decided to squirt some lighter fluid on it to get it going faster. Well it got going alright. I gave it a good ole’ hose job and the fire ran up the stream of lighter fluid and headed right towards the full can I was holding! I yelled, “Holly Crap!” and jerked the can away from the upcoming flame. But at the same time I was so shocked that I was still squeezing the can as I was swinging the can away from the flame, and the lighter fluid sprayed from one truck to my tent to the other van and before a blink of an eye, all these were on fire! I was able to toss the can from the flame but it had followed the first stream. Everyone was in frantic action and got the flames out with dirt and my tent had just a few torched marks on it. We all got a pretty good chuckle out of that one. Luckily we all moved quick and it was not serious. I never pulled that stunt again.
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