Lighting up the night sky
Sparking a bonfire has always been something I enjoy doing during the cooler fall nights. And I finally got around to doing one this past weekend, but this one wasn’t just any ordinary backyard bonfire.
It resembled an inferno of a large brush pile. Well, maybe not quite that huge, but you get the idea.
It took place on my mother’s farm where she had been stockpiling brush and tree branches for at least the past three years. We actually lost count of how far back it goes.
The pile has been on the edge of a wooded area on the north side of the farm. As spring and summer storms pass through, my mom keeps adding broken branches and tree limbs to the heap.
I also took advantage of the situation to burn old business records that are no longer needed. Since taking over the newspaper 16 years ago, I hadn’t destroyed any business records. They were stockpiling in the back room. I decided it was time to clean the office.
On Saturday evening, my oldest daughter and I set out to torch the pile. It proved to be kind of a comedy show, of sorts, with yours truly at the center of it all.
After dousing a few areas of the pile with gasoline, I grabbed the matchbook to light it up. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it might be. I went through a full book of matches and still had no sign of fire. A slight southeasterly wind didn’t help things, at least when it came to getting started.
We tried a few tricks in the book to start some old newspapers on fire before tossing them into the pile. The lighted up papers got to the wood pile and stayed lit up for a few minutes before going out.
It became downright frustrating, at least for me, as we even doused some of the papers with gasoline. After throwing them on the wood pile, we quickly reached out with a large stick with paper burning on the end. To our surprise, it didn’t even ignite with the gasoline.
We went back and forth trying all kinds of tricks to orchestrate some fire magic, but to no avail. It would burn for a minute or two and then go out. Unfortunately, I had no access to a torch, which probably would have gotten things rip roaring going much sooner.
At one point, I even commented to my daughter how I would make a horrible arsonist. We chuckled. It’s probably a good thing that fire tricks aren’t my specialty. It became obvious to me that lighting a large fire maybe isn’t as easy as one may think. I’ll admit I’m not particularly fond of fires, at least beyond lighting a fire place or candle in the house.
Finally, after about 45 minutes of trying to make a spark, and at least four matchbooks, it ignited and quickly lit up the night sky. We had a towering fire that went at least 30 feet in the air. It even generated a few spectators driving by in the rural neighborhood.
It amazes me on the intensity of fire. Within seconds, we couldn’t even stand next to it because the heat was so scorching and blistering hot. Of course, having wood that has been dry for years helped the cause.
Within an hour or so, the fire receded and went down to a smoldering blaze producing lots of smoke. It was just enough time to get my two dozen or so boxes of records destroyed.
We also found some time to share stories around the fire and enjoy chocolate smores, one of my favorite outdoor snacks.
If you’re planning to go in hot pursuit of a large bonfire of your own, I’d suggest not utilizing me any time soon. You’ll probably get impatient and end up waiting longer than you want.