I'll confess I was a bit a pyromaniac as a child. I don't know how hard my parents tried to keep potentially dangerous things like matches out of the reach of us little kids, but I always knew where to find a box of matches, and I often carried one in my pocket. It's no wonder I enjoyed Boy Scouts so much... I was allowed to make fires without getting into trouble!
When I was about 5 years old we were living in rural Coffee County, Alabama, in a subdivision we called Jeaderville. I remember one Sunday morning when I was all dressed in my Sunday clothes and ready for church. I guess everyone else was still getting ready, so I found something to keep myself occupied outside in the meantime. There was plenty of pine needles on the ground from the trees in our back yard, so I made 10 little piles of pine straw in one neat long row. Then I took a little box of matches out of my pocket and lit the piles on fire one by one. I don't think I finished lighting all ten piles before my dad came outside and spanked me. He sent me inside with my bottom burning (with pain) while he stomped out the fires I had just made. Can you imagine getting ready to go to church on Sunday and having to pause to stop your child from setting fire to the back yard?
Small piles of burning pine needles are easy to put out.
The next [unsanctioned] fire I started outside was too big to be extinguished with feet. I was reminded of this while listening to Thomas S. Monson tell a similar story from his childhood during a recent General Conference talk (read or watch the talk). When I was about 8 years old, I used to play with a kid who lived on the block. I think his name was Josh. He was a year or two older than me. I could cross my back yard to get to his house. There were a few junk cars in their back yard. One day Josh and I were sitting in one of the cars pretending like we were driving around. He was in the driver seat; I was in the passenger seat. Since I wasn't driving, I decided to pull out the box of matches from my pocket and light one. I just loved lighting matches and watching them burn. Josh was captivated as well. We looked around for something we could light on fire and found some papers in the glove compartment. I struck another match and lit the paper. The flame from the burning paper started getting too big for such close quarters, so we tried to think quickly about the best way to put it out. I shoved it back inside the glove compartment and shut it quickly. After a few seconds we opened the glove compartment to see if the fire had gone out yet. When we opened it, a big flame bellowed out. Startled, we scuttled out of the car as fast as we could. The next thing I remember, the car was completely engulfed in flames, the fire department was there, and all the neighbors gathered around to look. I didn't get spanked for that one. I remember just standing there watching along with everyone else and thinking to myself, "cool!" Within a couple of days, all the junk cars in their yard were removed. I guess we were lucky that there was not more damage. Come to think of it, I'm probably lucky I didn't burn my own house down at some point.
The next story happened when I was an adult. This time I did not start a fire, but instead help put one out. The fire was not started by matches, but rather a cigarette. One hot, dry summer afternoon as I was driving the long, straight highway 167 between my home and Enterprise, I could see down the road a ways that on oncoming vehicle flicked a cigarette out the passenger window. As I proceeded along I saw a flash of light come from the grass on shoulder of the road. As I got closer I realized it was a fire and saw smoke coming from it. I also noticed that each time an 18-wheeler passed by, it fanned the flames and made the fire bigger.
I pulled over near the fire, thinking it was still small enough I could stamp it out. By the time I got there it had already grown to about 3-4 feet in diameter, too big for one person to stamp out, given the burning grass was over a foot high. I looked around to think what could be done. There were a few homes in the area. One was directly in front of the fire, but the house was about 3 acres away. There were two other houses across the street that were closer. I ran to the first house, knocked on the door, and rang the doorbell. The door was locked. I didn't wait for an answer but instead ran around back to look for a hose or something with which I could put out a fire. I figured trespassing would be tolerated in such an emergency. I didn't find anything useful, and no one came out, so I ran to the next house and did the same thing. I found a shovel on the front porch and grabbed it. Then I saw between the two houses a long hose connected to a spicket. It was definitely long enough, so I turned on the water and started unwinding the hose to stretch it out across the road. By the time I got back to the fire it has spread to about 10 feet long and 6 feet wide. There were some people in a car who stopped and started attacking the fire with machetes. To my dismay, the water from the hose was barely a trickle. "This isn't going to do the job," I told myself, and I ran back across the street to see if I could get more water pressure. By the time I got back again, another car had stopped, and the driver happened to have a small fire extinguisher in his trunk. With that, he was able to put the fire out. The fire had burned about a 20-25 feet stretch along the road and about 10 feet wide.
When things calmed down, I stood there in a bit of shock and thought about how quickly that fire could have spread across the dry grass fields and forests immediately surrounding that spot. At least one home might have been burned up, along with miles of forest. Thankfully, we were able to prevent that from happening. Still, I think about it every time I see another inconsiderate litterbug throw their cigarette butt on the ground. They say "if you play with fire, you'll get burned," but often times the person playing with doesn't get burned. Instead, they can cause serious damage to someone else, sometimes without even knowing it. Even our smallest decisions can have great consequences. Today, I still know where to find matches when I need them, but I have since learned and practiced safety with fire, and I have also taught the proper use and control of fire to others.
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