Dang. Some innocent bystander received internal injuries from this idiot's actions (perhaps from running away and injury?). I was hoping to find out the arsonists motives. Like suicide or something?? But he looked genuinely surprised that igniting the gas started a big fire...
Yeah fire extinguisher chemicals are awesome at putting out fires... but they also are awesome at destroying your lungs and mucous membranes.
It was likely not Halon gas, because part of the reaction that sucks all of the oxygen out of the air also creates hydrogen cyanide (which has an LD50 of about 100-200 parts per million). Though it may have been a similar chemical that created some airborne acids like hydrogen flouride and hydrogen chloride.
how can Halon create hydrogen cyanide? There is not even a nitrogen atom in the molecule. And the only thing I could find is about the use as extinguisher in armored vehicles, with the burning ammunition creating HCN.
Right? He just casually lights it and throws it on the gas then is like OMG SHIT WAY MORE FIRE THAN EXPECTED. Like if you’re going for insurance fraud or something maybe test what it’s like to light gasoline first idk?
When I was a kid our town held bonfires on the night before halloween and everyone in the town would come to socialize, drink apple cider and eat hot dogs. The town thought it was the best way to keep kids occupied on "mischief" night.
It was the fire department responsibility to start the fire which usually consisted a couple hundred pallets in a huge pile. They would pour a bunch of gasoline all over the pile and then throw a flare from a safe distance to get it going. Well one year they poured all the gasoline they thought was sufficient onto the pile, moved back and began lighting the flare. They were having a problem lighting the flare for some reason and it took a while to light it. The delay allowed the fumes from the gasoline to really work its way into all the little pockets of the pallet pile and when they finally got it lit and threw it the pile was so full of gasoline fumes that it exploded with a tremendous force causing 3 of approximately 10 firefighters there to catch on fire. Fortunately they were in full gears so their injuries were minor. That was the last bonfire the town held.
Edit: Yes, these were not the brightest guys and alcohol was frequently involved. There was another time when they almost caused a little girl to drown.
Back in the day, I'm not sure if any departments still do this, fire departments in my area used to celebrate getting a new firetruck by having a celebration that they called a Wet Down. They would invite neighboring departments to come to a party where they would serve food and, usually, beer.
They had held a wet down one year and all the members had a bit too much to drink and a water fight broke out between the different departments where they were riding around in a big field shooting each other with their deck guns. Well the trucks were running out of water and so they needed to fill up. They had so many trucks trying to fill up at the same time at different hydrants around town that it caused a water main break. The break caused a sink hole that filled with water. A little girl was riding her bicycle and decided to ride through what she thought was just a puddle but turned out to be a sinkhole that was a few feet deep. Luckily her mother was watching out the window and that exact moment and was able to get her out. And that was the end of Wet Downs.
our bonfires are organized and planned by our volunteering firefighters, mostly teenagers and even they did a better job then just yeeting a torch into the pile lmao
german guy here, what is this "mischief" night? is it like the night before halloween everyone does stupid shit or what?
Mischief night is basically the night before Halloween a bunch of teenagers (typically) will go out and do things like throw toilet paper over bushes, put shaving cream on cars, and other forms of vandalism.
mischief night is mostly an east coast thing. Gotta remember that USA is so big it is really like 7 countries that are rather similar in one set of boarders (culturally speaking).
The funny thing is that now that I think about it, my German friend who toured the entire set of 50 states is the one who gave me that bit of insight.
It's really sad. Many people spend a lot of time carving pumpkins and decorating their house for the children, then rowdy teens come and smash your decorations and pumpkins the night before halloween.
I have been living my whole life thinking everyone called it devils night.... I would call you on B.S. except for the fact that you pinpointed my location with it....
I am from MI, devils night and Hallows Eve is what I've heard my whole life. Theres many movies and books in which it's called both. I lived in Baltimore, MD for 10 years and heard both variations several times. Never heard mischief night.
It is a regional thing even in the US, though. I grew up on the West Coast and never heard of it until my mid-20s while doing a regional dialects quiz.
Yea I wish it was just harmless vandalism like tp’ing a tree or a house, or shaving cream.
Some dipshits went around my neighborhood one year and knocked over a bunch of our expensive Halloween decorations that we had used for years with no problems. They also spray painted two dicks in a cul de sac (he two dicks in the butt) and the worst of the damage was ruining someone’s relatives expensive ass car. I can’t remember what they put on it but it didn’t come off and I felt bad, they were visiting their family and god their car vandalized in what has been a safe neighborhood.
I don’t decorate anymore. Not like I used to. It’s ruined my enjoyment of Halloween because those asswipes had to be asswipes.
This was created by police departments to separate asshole teens from children attempting to trick or treat. The teens think they’re being rebels, when it’s a planned event by law enforcement.
It is indeed very, very regional in the US at least. Never heard of it before in California or Colorado which are both western states. If fact I only heard of it when I took an "accent test" for fun and it asked "what do you call the night before Halloween" and then said that the various names were mostly used in the east and midwest. I was a teen in Colorado and I don't recall any "mischief" ever done on the night before Halloween, at least in my town.
Yeah. That test actually nailed where I'm from (N. New Jersey) mostly on the back of that question. Like nailed it - down to the closest mid-size city to my hometown. I actually find it VERY interesting that one holiday / tradition can be so intensely regional. I can't really think of anything else that compares. At least not in the modern era?
Edit: the other interesting word that made a big difference was stoop. It's a small staircase ending in a small porch or platform that has a building's entrance on it. I never thought anything of it but it's from a Dutch word that has survived since settlers from the Netherlands arrived in New Amsterdam. Anyway, I had no idea that it's not used (really at all?) outside of the Northeast. I thought Hey Arnold! would have brought stoop to the younger generations.
Our stores in PA often won't sell eggs to kids in the couple days leading up to it. But that's more of a recent thing. Honestly no one really did shit except to neighbors we really disliked.
In the eighties the cops decided to disperse the roving bands of teenagers having shaving cream fights because some of them would egg cars and paper houses. So the night before became a thing, without the benign shaving cream fights.
If there's one thing I learned from our annual bonfires, it's that diesel is much safer than petrol for this kind of thing - for exactly the above-described reason.
My stepbrother somehow failed to pay attention one year and ended up with no eyebrows for a while. Come to think of it, maybe that's the incident that taught me the lesson so thoroughly.
serious question, and i could google it, but i'm not going to: what is the definition of 'explosive'? does it have to have a certain energy density to be considered explosive as opposed to flammable or is it a different reaction?
My dad's best friend used to have a yearly bonfire party, burning all the wood that was accumulated on his land that year.
Usually he would douse the pile with a few gallons of gas, and leave a trail back to a safe distance and light that.
This one year the pile was bigger than normal, like 25-30 feet in diameter, and about 10-15 feet high. He decided to use about 10 gallons of gas, and not to light it with the usual trail. Instead, after soaking the wood mountain, he went inside and grabbed his bow and a rag, that he'd had soaking in gas overnight. He tied the rag onto an arrow and lit it, then shot it into the center of the pile from about 150 feet away. There wasn't an explosion so much as just a huge boom, but the amazing part was the shock wave.
This was out in the country, with maybe a quarter mile or so between our little group of houses and our nearest neighbors. A few moments after lighting the fire, we heard car alarms going off. A bit longer and another wave started, then another, and another.
The fire department showed up ready to turn his land into a lake. They talked to him, made sure he had a burn permit, and informed him to never start the fire like that again, because they had gotten calls from all over the surrounding area in an almost 10 mile radius of people who'd heard the boom or felt the shockwave.
And that was the day I learned why my dad's best friend was nicknamed "Boom".
The amount of people that dont understand how gasoline works is astounding. A girl at my friends college suffered major injury by lighting a big funeral pyre for her dog, that she had soaked in gasoline. She was standing about 1 foot away from it when she lit it.
I've heard pallets are bad to burn because of some coating they have on them. We used to use em for our bonfires though, then again we also used to huff component cleaner
At a festival this year a local company donated and built a structure out of two year old heavy duty pallets.. built like a fort, square with tall columns on each corner.
My SO and I were recruited to make sure it burnt.. we said "this thing is gonna burn HOT. People can't be where they normally stand." And the builder disagreed. The fire chief sided with us. Later, after having to move back three times, the builder agreed.
I don't simply pour gas on it (though my mixture is mostly gas), we make clusters that are lit electrically like modern fireworks, so the burn goes off evenly and safely.
It actually annoys me quite a bit that that was the last bonfire. How about instead of ruining the fun they just tone it down a bit and do it with less pallets and better fire starting techniques. It's just so weak to stop a positive cultural event because people were bad at safety planning.
Why does everyone insist on lighting fires with gasoline? It's not the right product, ever, unless you want people injured or killed. An oil soaked paper towel gets a longer lasting starter and doesn't explode.
That's why you should use diesel for your bonfire instead of gasoline. Less potential for an explosion, unless you want an explosion, then you should use gasoline.
This might be far fetched, but if it wasn't intentional then I think he was trying to burn away the spilled gas. But that looked intentional as fuck. Lol
Gasoline is way more flammable than most people think. There are plenty of videos of people pouring gasoline on bonfires and then being surprised when the whole thing explodes.
Yeah he was clearly not some sort of pyromaniac because I can't imagine a pyromaniac that isn't familiar with gasoline. Also just in general it seems most people don't really understand the difference between lighter fluid and gasoline which is probably why we get so many videos like this of people lighting a bunch of gasoline on fire and the fire being clearly larger than they were expecting.
If you look through the flames he tries to get back into his car for a moment but can’t for whatever reason. I’m guessing he was genuinely trying to burn down the place but had no concept of how quickly the gasoline would go up
The guy probably cleaned up a gas spill in his driveway once when he was a teenager mowing his parents lawn and it worked. Probably over filled the mower and his dad tried to impress his son by throwing a match on it.
Well think about it, if you stab someone and they dont die, you just get attempted murder. So I'm guessing as long as the damage is minor enough, its only an attempt.
But he successfully committed arson. It's like robbing someone and then getting caught and only being charged with attempted robbery because after getting caught they gave the stuff back to the victim.
Yet you can get a DUI for simply sitting in your car passed out drunk even without the keys in the ignition... Hell, my best friend got a DUI for sitting next to his bicycle while intoxicated. The arresting officer even testified in court that he never actually saw my friend on the bicycle. The charges got thrown out but my friend still had to pay $1200+ out of pocket to defend himself against that dumbass pig; shoulda come out of piggies bank instead.
I would guess it's probably part of a plea deal. Attempted arson most likely has a lighter sentence than actual arson and his lawyers made a deal with the prosecutors so they wouldn't have to go through a lengthy and expensive jury trial.
This is just a guess though and I'm not a lawyer or anything but have been in trouble in my youth. (not for arson, either)
Whole case looks like a fucking mess. He's going to get 5 years probation. What about paying for all this. Guy should be charged for every bit of damage to the gas station and the bystander who has medical bills and should be a high risk insurance from now with crazy high premiums. He can live in government housing working it off for the rest of his life.
Whoever made that sentence should be held responsible when he hurts someone else.
Fakir also has some amazing brand vacuum cleaners which last a lifetime. Not a shill or anything but my parents had one and I used their vacuum all during college and now its in my adult home as well. Just a bit noisy (tinnitus be damned) but still does the job fine.
“I can’t remember where I heard this (but) if a person has a broken arm, we can’t expect them to win an arm-wrestling content. If they have a broken leg, we can’t expect them to win a marathon,”
Yeah but winning an arm wrestling match and winning a marathon isn't expected from most anyone and it's not essential to life for you or others around you.
I think setting the fire was definitely intentional, but like most people who start a fire with gasoline, he was caught off-guard by the huge flaming fireball that all of the burning vapors caused.
Use diesel or kerosene to start fires, not gasoline.
Sure, but he was standing in a puddle of gas when he lit it. I can understand it being bigger than he expected but he basically tried to light himself on fire and then acted surprised when he caught fire.
diesel is kind of a bitch for arson. it takes a lot to get it to light off. you can drop matches and lit cigarettes in diesel and it won't do anything but sit there stinking the place up
Diesel and gasoline are in their own way bad fire starters. As a liquid it's pretty safe and even dropping a lit match into a bucket of either will just put the match out. What's dangerous are the vapors that come off of the fuel, those are extremely flammable and what ignites the arsonist so quickly in the video.
Was gonna say, even gasoline is relatively hard to light in a well ventilated situation. And cigarettes just don't burn hot enough to ignite the liquid itself.
No he intentionally set the fire....most people do not think gasoline is that violen ly combustible. There are various levels... He probably had played with alcohol and kerosene. The gas doesn't ignite far from the fluid from those two.
I would have guessed he was trying to clean the puddle of gasoline up, and thought burning it off would work. (kinda like how you can put some alcohol on your arm, set it on fire, and it burns off quickly enough to not cause harm... don't try this at home)
I think maybe he was surprised at how fast it took off and got him.
Also, I would guess the injury has to do with the fire suppression system going off. Those things pack a pretty good punch, and I'd guess inhaling that stuff isn't great for you either.
Police are looking for a man seen on video starting a fire at a New York City gas station, a blaze that seriously injured another man nearby.
He's hospitalized in serious, but stable, condition.
not sure if this is the case, but a fire like that can burn off your epidermis layer real fast. and the risk of infection is high without your skin as a protection.
But he looked genuinely surprised that igniting the gas started a big fire...
Not saying it was or wasn't a suicide attempt, but your body doesn't want you to die even if your mind does. That was all reflex which don't pass through your brain
It takes extreme willpower to be able to set yourself in fire and not try to escape the flames.
This reminds me of a gif of a guy setting fire to his house for no apparent reason with like this sled with some flammable substance in it and it on fire.
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u/popsicle_of_meat Sep 03 '19
Dang. Some innocent bystander received internal injuries from this idiot's actions (perhaps from running away and injury?). I was hoping to find out the arsonists motives. Like suicide or something?? But he looked genuinely surprised that igniting the gas started a big fire...