Burn Baby Burn Stevie Wonder - Innervisions Never underestimate fire and your own ability to overlook common sense. I went on a five day camping trip in my grade eight year. We were about 4 classes which I would guess was about 100 students. It was a rather boring event that the teachers had arranged on someone's chunk of farm land about 60 miles from the city. We all used our own camping gear so there were two, four and six man tents. The guys were on one side of the farm house and the girls on the other. I shared a tent with three other guys of which only one I knew really well. You see the teachers assigned who would be with who and I think they separated people who they felt would cause problems. Scott and I were together and our two other buddies were stuck in a tent up on the hill with four other nerds. They were both named Dave. Dave S and Dave E. One evening we were up the hill just before dusk. It was a very nice evening the sun was setting it was a little cool but the sky was clear. Their six man tent was situated right at the top of this hill. If you stood at the front of the tent looking away, you had a bit of a cliff on the left and a gradual slope leading away from the tent. On the right there was dense brush. Dave E decided that it would be a good idea to get a nice little fire going. We collected a pile of wood from around the tent and built the perfect wood pile which sat over a one foot deep hole in the ground surrounded by rocks. We sat around while Dave E dropped several matches onto the fire with no success. We did not have any paper to get it going so we had tried to use some dried up brush. Just as I stood up to take a closer look at what was going on Dave S suggested that we use some fuel to get it going. That figured perfectly because in our younger days Dave S was a very dangerous pyromaniac. He has settled down but his eyes lit up as he made the suggestion. Dave E jumped up an said "I have some naphtha". "Great" Dave S shouted "go get it". And so Dave E did. While Dave E was getting the fuel I stood over the fire and examined what was going on. It was obvious the fire would not start because the matches were all falling down into the bottom of the pit where they were not even coming close to lighting anything. In fact, there were two matches still burning at the bottom of the pit. Dave E marched enthusiastically back to the fire. It was getting cool and he had put on a green & black mackinaw jacket. He had poured about 1/2 a cup of naphtha into a steel container and was ready to pour it on the fire. I asked myself "should I tell him about the match?" I decided it would be fun to watch every one leap back when the fire started with a super poof. We all stood around quite closely and watched. There we were Dave S, Scott, Mike and myself and only I knew. Dave E's hand turned slowly and before the naphtha had fallen half way to the fire there was an intense swoosh sound. Dave E's reaction was to toss the remaining naphtha onto his jacket. He instantly burst into flames. We all looked on in amazement. All but Dave S who leapt to his feet and pushed Dave E off the cliff. As Dave E feel down the dirt cliff lighting the whole camp ground up with the flames and his screams, I ran and grabbed a sleeping bag. I threw the sleeping bag down to where the guys were all beating the fire out. They rolled Dave E around for a bit until he was totally out. I think this episode lasted all of 45 seconds, it scarred the shit out of all of us. Dave E's jacket was destroyed but fortunately he was fine. I think he lost a hair or two but fine none the less. He never asked if anyone saw a flame in the bottom but he did exclaim "I had no idea there was a match burning down there". I recently found Dave E's name and address on an exchange with an old high school friend. He remembered the story in great detail. I confessed that I knew about the match. Fortunately he is a good shit and wrote it off juvenile lack of common sense. I though that was a good excuse.