When I was a bit younger, I had an interest in the physics of fire. I performed enough experiments with the reaction to gain respect for its destructive power, but at the same time to dispel irrational fears related to it.
Experiments
Naturally, I played with candles and candle wax. Melted paraffin wax is almost hot enough to scald, but tolerable -- especially after the first layer has cooled. I also had a small kerosene lamp that came with my chemistry set. I just liked to light it and watch it burn. I created larger versions of this using glass jars and whatever twine or rope I could find to form a wick.
Even before I joined Boy Scouts, I was learning how to light and tend a wood fire (e.g. at family cookouts). It was great fun to take the leftover coals and drop them the 1 story onto the driveway, watching them explode into a shower of sparks. In Boy Scouts, I was always first out of the sack in the morning, building a fire with handy twigs. Often, I started the fire from last night's coals -- a zero-match fire.
A friend showed me how to light the surface of a cup of gasoline, and then toss this out on the lake to watch it sit on the surface and burn. I expanded on this trick by using a tire pump to blow air into the cup, creating impressive fireballs (as in movie pyrotechnics). In contrast (I found), kerosene needs a wick. I later learned that if you mix kerosene with your gasoline, you get the really impressive orange-and-black fireballs that always happen when a car explodes in the movies. Suspension of disbelief required.
The closest I came to starting a brush fire was when I was using Dad's propane torch to light the seed heads of weeds on the hill in the back yard. At one point, I turned around and saw that a weed had flared up and created a small patch of burning grass. I stomped this out, and decided I'd better quit for the day.
I practiced gas welding in Shop class in high school. Fire can be very useful.
Sometimes, a fire in the family fireplace would start to get out-of-hand. A glass full of water tossed onto it quickly brings it back under control.
Applications
Aside from being able to build a campfire from a few coals, the best use of my knowledge has been in putting fires out.
The best example of a lack of unreasonable fear is when I was visiting my sister in Boylston MA. She was frying in oil, when the contents of the pan caught fire. She yelled, "Fire". In spite of the 3' flames rising from the pan, I simply lifted it up and backed out into the carport. I knew that a bit of flame for a few seconds would not set the ceiling, walls or woodwork on fire; I just had to keep moving. I set the pan down on the concrete floor and went to look for some baking soda. But before I returned, the flames had gone out. Crisis averted.
A lack of unreasonable fear has practical applications, as well. One time, as I was driving north on I-95, I got into a traffic jam. After inching along for 3 miles I came over the crest of a ridge and saw a car in flames on the left shoulder. Traffic was funneling itself down to one lane on the right shoulder near the car, so it didn't have to be too close in case the car blew up. Well folks, that only happens in the movies. As soon as the left lane was open in front of me, I sped up to 60 and breezed by the burning car with all three traffic lanes at my disposal. I absorbed a brief burst of infrared as I passed. So what? Even if the gas tank had exploded at that moment, I would have gotten a slightly more intense burst of heat and nothing more.
When I lived on Octavia Court, I one time noticed smoke rising over the west side of the apartment complex. I found that a neighboring house was on fire, picked up the garden hose on the neighbor's back lawn and trained it on the hot spots. The Fire Department was already there, but they didn't have enough people to keep the flames down while searching for and extinguishing hidden embers. The cause of the fire was a bunch of paper bags that had been stashed behind the dryer, so the fire crew assumed it was an electrical fire. Perhaps the bravest thing I have ever seen a firefighter do was to attack the service line with an axe. He did manage to knock the meter box off the wall, but I think he fortunately did not succeed in breaching the conduit and severing the cables.
Another time, driving between Greensboro and Raleigh at night, I saw orange light reflected from low clouds. As I drove down the long dirt road leading toward it, I saw a mobile home fully engulfed in flame. Clearly, there was nothing I could do but watch it burn. I asked to be sure that nobody was inside (indeed not) and left just as the volunteer fire department arrived.
One summer, as I was setting out for New York, I noticed smoke off to the left of US 1, just north of the I-40 interchange. I parked on the shoulder of the road and set off on foot to find the fire. What I found was that one of the recently-built apartment buildings was fully engulfed in flame. Again, there was nothing I could do about that. However, this time I noticed that the heat from the flames had started a ground fire that was creeping along in a widening circle across the uncleared land around the construction site. I picked up a long stick and started working a line, to keep the fire from progressing downwind. I just used the end of the stick to kick the burning grass and leaves over onto the place that had already burned. I worked a few minutes on one side of the gap and then turned around and worked the other side, to make sure that the fire wasn't "turning my flank". Before the Fire Department arrived, I had extinguished a line that was 25' long, and saved a small stand of spindly trees from incineration. The professionals pulled the hose off their tanker truck and made short work of the rest of the fire. But I still felt like I'd contributed to keeping the fire contained.
A few years later, I got to play the hero by dousing an engine fire with beer (it doesn't burn), and blowing out the remaining flames with my breath. My experience told me that would work.
