Why do you light fires?

At the park, I light fires to toast marshmallows. But you can hardly say I light it. I go and find the "squirrel of fire" while my friends, mainly the one who used to live in the woods, light it.

I light small fires to burn candles and insence, and to create an atmosphere. I also know a cetain ritual in which you light a fire and burn symbolic things in it that represent people and obstacles you need to overcome in yoir life.

For heat; for light; for cooking; for various forms of metalworking; for disposing of sensitive material.

Come on Seajay, get a life.

The comments disappeared!

Yippeee!!!

No more rude, annoying, demented people in the chatroom!

To eliminate ambient VOCs

c = (E/M)**0.5

For many more reasons than this.

Did you know that if your stove sputters colors like orange or purple instead of pure blue, the gas company is sending you toxic waste to dispose?

Have you ever read the 'psychology of fire'? It was one of those victorian armchair philospher like rants on gazing.
Or have you considered it as a life form? It eats and moves, is born, propogates, and dies. It creates, transforms, and destroys.
Tonights agenda includes ordering chemicals to make candles that burn in different colors. I'm on a budget and hesitant because mimnimum orders per chemical run about $16, and I don't which ones have a decent ksp or emulsification. I'm sticking to the nitrates and pure metals just to be safe.

In the meadow we can build a straw man, and pretend that he is Marshall Brown. He'll say 'Are you crazy?' We'll say 'No, man' then we'll take a match and torch him to the ground. Later on, we'll perspire as we set another fire. Create a warm winter's day the pyromaniac way, walkin in a cinder wonderland...

Oh sorry. To answer the question: For heat. Yeah, that's it, for heat.

atmosphere, cooking, heat, light, to stare at, to burn things I want to remove from my life, to keep animals away, to destroy evidence, other: to melt substances such as plastic for making figurines of small woodland creatures

Happy happy. I just put in a large order for pyrotechnic chemicals to make color burning candles.
BBM: Try cougar feces as compost to keep the deer out. What kind of plastics are you working in? The lids of liver containers used to shrink to small thick pieces good for christmas ornaments or earrings after being painted/penned. Anything like witches making frog candles? I prefer myself to find animals in existing rocks or driftwood and enhance them out.

We don't have trouble with deer. The fire mentioned to keep animals away is only when camping and for coyotes mostly.
I've been melting down plastic milk caps into little figurines. It is effective but takes some time and if the plastic drips it burns very badly.

Whoa. I just did some research and discovered that I accidentally ordered a bomb kit. I ordered some nitrates along with my salts, and somehow didn't realize that these were nitric acid solutes, the kind of thing that goes boom on contact. Fortunately something was looking out for me, and disabled my faxing capacity long enough to delay shipment, (I hope). Now I'm probably on some NSA surveillance, if I wasn't already. What was I thinking? I read the 'anarchist cookbook' when I was 12. I should have realised my recent pyrotechnic research was flawed. knew it was incomplete, and the request for my ID prompted me to finish research I should have done before ordering. Now I can't sleep because I want to be sure I call first thing in the morning and make sure they got my e-mail. It's been a poor week for sleep. I'm almost wondering if I was possessed or something. I made the mistake of going to firework hobbyist website that suggested some happy-go-lucky techniques likely to blow the reader to smithereens. I'll have to do some more research, but I get the idea from the safety sheets that you don't go pouring nitrates haphazardly on combustibles and expect to live to tell about it. According to some chat rooms, most people can't even get nitrates, I guess this was the same sort of karma that allowed me to talk to the major V.P's or nearly stumble into the best parade seating. Likewise, I often don't get help when it's asked for; The fellow at the lab didn't see a problem with my order when I addressed my concerns. I live in a realm where I forge my own precedent with brain puzzling hints from the omniscient.
Guess I'll address this one to Joalis, since I got such a kick from her song.

Haha. Thanks Kristal

To singe the ends of nylon string.

mostly to light candles or burn incense. But when I'm bored in science I shove my biro in the bunsen burner and melt it!

Great survey!!

Thanks Man. Hey, I've got replies here but they did not show up when I clicked on replies on the tool bar above. Is that normal?

I came up with this survey while I was burning some branches in the back yard. I was in a sort of trance while I stared and thought about fire etc. I remember thinking that there is someone somewhere right now seeing the smoke I have caused. I thought about the trees surrounding the fire and how they would be getting a good deep breath of CO2. It was a real spin out. Maybe I should have stood up-wind.

I find that sometimes I get replies after I checked, because (I'm assuming) someone has replied right after I checked.

In fact, sometimes when people are online at the same time they "chat" on the page.

No, it's not. I'd report it to bill via feedback

I light the fires to keep the bugs from crawling on me....

Yeah, pouring 99% iso-propyl alcohol over yourself works great for that. Gas is worse than the bugs though.

Heat, to stare at, to create an atmosphere, smoke, cook, burn incense and oil, for light, and just because I have a burning desire for fire!

Ha! That's what it was that I was trying to remember! I was in bed falling asleep and got the idea to put chemicals into candles to make colored flame, but totally forgot about the 'great idea' when I woke up. I've been trying to remember it for days!

To make love next to a romantic, roaring fireplace.

I'm waiting for UPS to show up with about $80 worth of chemicals for coloring candle flames.

Well what are you using?

How do you do it? Is it really complicated?

You touched on a couple, came close to one of my reasons -- but not quite. As the name sort of implies, I'm a blacksmith. Use fire to forge metal.

My old fire sculptures involved dissolving chemicals ie Boric Acid {$3 quart at sav-on for killing roaches} in 99% iso-propyl-alcohol. My sculpture was patinaed copper & bronze to make a 5' jungle flower with skeletal leaves. It had separate circuits for leaves, petals, stamen, & skeleton. Tubes were in the stalk which led to the base which was a tangled gnarl of roots and pods (Citroën suspension spheres) designed to create pockets of steamed alcohol & fluid resevoirs. The end result was slow billowing clouds & erratic jets of burning colors. It was primed by barbeque starter or setting in the glowing coals of a beach pit fire. The first time I lit it for our final critique in sculpture class after a 54 hour fabrication marathon of final welding assembly it performed nicely then toppled like the life cycle of an annual. Later after reinforcing the stalk at the beach one night with all my 1/4 mile mural friends the wind created an eddy in the flower and the metal glowed a bright orange. Various demons appeared in the photos, one of which became my 7 of cups card. The piece was sold for $5 at an art fair back in my mad monk days where I sold my entire collection of works for $14.50.
I am experimenting now with dipping wicks in alcohol solutions then going ack and forth between rolling in chemical salts and dipping in wax. I'll let you know when I have decent prototypes. Hopefully I'll be able to sell them at occult shoppes. I won't tell you what the candles will look like; instead give me your mailing address, and (time and materials allowing) I'll add you to my christmas list.
kristalphoenix@icqmail.com.

I've experienced that a few times as well. If you figure out why, I'd like to know also.

There is definitely something spiritual about fire. It is scary, powerful, useful, constructive and destructive all at once. i'm starting to sound like a pyro'.

You're a Blacksmith!! Wow! Do you work for yourself?

I love the smell of just-burned matches.

Fire's great!

The smell of just-burned matches is really nice...

I light bunsen burners in chemistry!!!

I really am curious. Do you shoe horses, work ornamental wrought iron, or make those fancy knives that sell for hundreds of dollars at rennaissance faires? I've done many sorts of welding, but nothing more hammerish than bending something. That sounds like fun.

i'm a pyro... and i smoke

Well.. its all started when i was 6, you see... my mother...so i... burn the house down... then.. yes.. yes.. MWAHAHAHAHAH

I never light fires. I turn on the gas stove and oven, but do not like to be the one lighting the fire when cooking on a grill. I don't smoke anymore, so I don't even light matches or lighters. I rarely light candles. If we had a fireplace, I would probably use it, just because it adds warmth and looks pretty.

Ah, good old times, when my ex and his friends wanted to burn an old house.
That's how you end up when you always hang out with guys; doing guys stuff, being taken to the strip bars, criminal, illigal trading, etc.

to light candles and to burn evidence