You biggest fire mistake.

i thought id like to start a post about people biggest mistakes with fire.

either when they first started or when ever really.

when i first started spinning i got fire happy and way to greedy.

i made this wikkedly big poi like the size of a rockmelon. and soaked it and started spining. with little knowledge and to much kero. i manages to make this really dodgy poi and span it around a bit thinking i was kool and it came apart. because it was saoked in kero and all the material came apart all the fuel caught on fire and a massive fire ball went up my arm. it was hot. i learnt from that. MAKE YOUR POI BETTER AND SAFER CARBON!!!

I twirled in a loose flowing polyester shirt - Big mistake, it caught on fire without even touching it and melted and stuck to me.... Needless to say, i've learnt my lesson about sensible clothing and thinking first about what to wear if i'm going to play with fire - Ouch!

Luckily some of my fellow spinners are nurses, Thanks girls!

kero.

Getting my cathedral chains wraped up and tied in a knot around my arm, and needing my safety to help get them off.

kerosene.

plenty of time have i had the whole tangle thing happen. i don't like it much.

Forgetting I had hairspray on.
But hey, new hairdo for nothing.

burnt hair? light flowing polyester shirt? spinning poi is my only excuse to wear all black tight fitting denims and a bandana. i'd get shot for wearing that any other time ;]

my biggest mistake so far has been to let my parents be safties. `hey dad, lay that wet towel out so i can snuff my wicks` turned into him throwing it to the ground, my mom quickly bending over trying to fix it, and her hair nearly going up in smoke.

nothing too deadly yet ;]

i really haven't had any problems thankfully with my fire spinning. last week the little bit of hair sticking out from my bandana got singed, but nothing too bad. other than that, no burns, no catching anything on fire, nothing really. i'm a big safety person, so i've always managed to avoid problems. i also don't do wraps so i don't have as much to worry about there as far as clothes catching on fire.

i have, however, seen a few mistakes with other people i was doing safety for (thank goodness i was there). one time someone i knew was wearing a fleece-like top, and it caught on fire. the fire literally just crawled all along her shirt. it was really freaky and scary to see. another time, my best friend turned his head at the wrong time while doing a wrap and had a flash fire up his face. he thankfully didn't get burned, and it went out immediately. just had a few singed facial hairs and a really big scare.

I once set fire to my armpit while doing a corkscrew - it took a while to realise why people were pointing and laughing at me!!

I managed to put it out quickly though and no damage to me( although my top has a nice melty, burny bit now!)

thankfully ..*touch wood* i havent had anything bad happen spinning fire

...but i did set light to my hair when i was small leaning over my birthday cake..does that count??

only if you picked the cake up to spin it around!!

after Fire Breathing my bf always lights up a cigarette in his mouth while his face is still covered in parafin...

That armpit lighting was funny Bird though we werent laughing at the time, we were laughing afterwards at how long it took you to notice!

I havent really had any bad fire spinning experiences, though as Bird knows i have had a bad glowstick experience which landed me with a black eye for a few days. Though recently while spinning staff i dropped it while alight coz i didnt have my super grippy gloves on and it nearly set fire to the frayed bits on the bottom of my jeans, other that than im really safe

Hmmm...

Well, I did a not-so-smooth elbow wrap (to change directions in a weave), and got a flaming cathedral to the face, but only suffered a couple of singed hairs on the ole moustache, and had to grow my left eyelashes back, but no burns on the skin, thankfully.

My biggest mistake as a safety person was at this venue where I was spinning poi and my buddy was spinning staff. A girl was dancing a little closer to him than the circle I had prescribed before he started, but not too close, so I didn't worry about it. Apparently, whatever drugs she was on told her to go running up close to him, which surpised the crap out of him and he dropped the staff mid throw.... into her neck...

She was okay, no burns or anything. I felt bad, but her friends said she was so ridiuclously twacked out on drugs that she deserved it, lol. I'm not judgemental about what others put in their bodies, but if a substance makes you run towards someone swing a firey stick around, you shouldn't do that substance anymore!!

Quote:

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after Fire Breathing my bf always lights up a cigarette in his mouth while his face is still covered in parafin...

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WHAT? did I actually read that right?
*rereads*
yip... I cant believe it
your boyfriend shouldnt be breathing with parrfin let alone smoking with it all over his face... its a ticking time bomb.
Prehaps you should check out peles story in the article section and then talk to your boyfriend, because Fire Breathing is so damn dangerous and even with the highest safety precautions there is a high level of danger.

not just the fact he has fuel all over his face, but also the fact that he is breathing with PARRAFIN...

my boy thought it would be smart to put out his fire stick by bending his arm to smother it
im still hearing about how much it hurts and he did it 2 weeks ago
(he is such a sook)

This thread makes me so angry.
takes a deep breath and starts rant

It almost has a tone of people being PROUD of the mistakes...

We almost lost one of most respected and loved board members to this art, and she is one of the people in the worldwide fire community who has a LOAD of knowledge about safety. Even with all her years of twirling experience and her high regard for safety, something as unpredicatble as the wind helped to put her into hospital, and near death. This was out of her control.

Yet STILL a lot of us seem to be so flippant about the safety issue.

The minute you get cocky and stop respecting the fire, it will bite back.
damn it I dont care if I get called the safety nazi, but I wish some of you would wake up. Life is precious and not something to be played with. WE ARE NOT INVINCABLE

and yay for pounce... she is taking the safety issues seriously

how do u know we are proud of our mistakes my mistakes make me angry when they happen we are just sharing what has happened to us and people that we know

If I read rightly in the other thread peaches you just finished saying that you spin when drunk, and was quite proud of the fact
And you also wrote about how your boyfriend put his staff out with his ARM...He had every right to sook. It wasnt the smartest thing I have ever heard of.
give me a break... prehaps you should read a bit about safety.

Well, there was this one time at bandcamp where I went out spinning with my friend Bob. The thing is that Bob is better known for his part in the movie Ghostbusters. He played the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. Well he got to close to my firestaff and got all burnt up. It was okay though, really. Just found this huge cup of hot cocoa.....
Bob would have liked it that way!

R.I.P. Bob!

valura give me a break maybe you need to ready things properly other than read want you want to read thats all im gonna say about this topic

I hear what you're saying Valura and it makes sense what you say but you don't have to get so agro about it and critisising of it. Most of what's posted here is a light hearted reflect on something that went wrong, silly mistakes that were made and no doubt lessons thoroughly learnt from the experience, as I'm sure there are lessons you have learnt throughout your life with fire. I don't think the people putting in experiences need such an overbearing top up of advice they can just look at their scars for reminders. Plus reading these can be a lesson for others so please don't have a go at the posters because of it, none of them are promoting silly behaviour, just reflecting on it.

I was gonna post about something funny (and yes silly & ultimately educational & dangerous & preventable with hindsight) that happenned but I dont think I'll bother now.

And no offense meant V, but please don't pick on folks for stupid mistakes, it's how we've learnt as a race. If our hindsight was foresight we'd be in a much better place. And like the title says.....Biggest Fire Mistake

p.s. I hope your friend who was badly burnt can return to a fully happy spinny life once more.

I totally agree with you, Custom Bug. We're just sharing experiences from which we definetely learnt something, I think.

I made my fire poi by myself about 1 and half years ago, attaching the head of poi to chains through keyrings.
My biggest mistake was not to check them everytime before lighting them
a few months ago, I didn't realize one of the keyrings had opened a little bit, leaving a tip out, and while I was doing legs wraps, it slipped into my trousers. The poi head got stuck on my thigh, but fortunately I didn't get burnt. Just a huge hole in my trousers and I managed to light it off

Change the keyrings more often now.

Nice topic anyway. Everyone can learn from others' mistakes.

S.

"the adventures first".."explanations take such a dreadful time!"

I agree with Valura and Pele, but I have a different take. My view is that threads like these, in spite of all the bravado, do drive home a few important points.

1) We're all humans and we all make mistakes.

2) None of us is immune to injury.

I'd like everyone here to reflect briefly on these two points before you finish reading this thread. We can laugh and boast and share battle scars. In a way, I feel that we accept that our art is a dangerous one and that we are mortal in doing so.

But at the same time, I think of Pele, DangerBoy, and FireMike and their experiences with serious injury. I think of those poor souls who have died or suffered permanent disability because of fire accidents, whether it is due to spinning or pyrotechnics.

Let's not forget that this is serious business.

As for me, I've always been cautious and careful enough that I haven't had anything go really wrong other than tiny patches of clothing catching on fire and going out on their own. Well, there was the time I smacked myself in the testicles with both flaming poi and went down in front of a crowd at Burning Man, but nobody was actually injured.

However, a friend of mine did suffer a second degree burn when a chain wrapped around his wrist. (I've submitted an article to Malcolm about First Aid for burns which will hopefully be available in a few weeks).

Spin on.

i hear what you're saying bug, but i also think valura has a point. i don't look back at all the fire mishaps i've seen and experienced and laugh at them, because they were scary at the time and they are still scary now. ya, we've all had little goofs, and we should be able to learn from them. but when we start to think of them as funny, then i think the learning curve starts to flatten out. hell, i can remember times i hit myself with glowsticks, and that's not nearly as fatal, but i still don't think they're entirely funny either. i got some nasty injuries from those.

i just think this thread should be about our accidents so we can learn about it, and not about who can boast who had the most bizarre/funny/crazy/whatever fire accident. cause i agree with valura...there were a few posts that seemed to be more boasting than educational.