Story Time! - I_am_a_psychopath

The Time We Almost Caused A Forest Fire

I say this like I was a huge part of the situation, I really wasn't surprisingly.

So after recently returning from the caravan for its 50th anniversary of being opened, the community had a bonfire night to celebrate!

It was great; we roasted marshmallows, set off fireworks, sang songs, had food and drinks, all that good stuff.

Anyway, this was where I remembered that we almost destroyed the Forrest by burning it down...

Many years ago when I was a small child (about 10 or something) I used to tag along with the older kids who came to the caravan more often, because my older cousins were friends with them and such.

One of the expeditions we went on was into the forest because there was a tree swing that they had built and it was really cool.

You need to cross a bridge which goes over a river to get into the forest. The forest is literally next to the railing of the bridge.

One day, on the way back from the tree swing, we decide to head down the beach. The river beds up connecting to the ocean so there's sand by the river.

We head down and it's that place where the bonfire was at this weekend, which is the reason it reminded me of that day.

We find a plastic container that's been thrown away, you know, the ones from shops and stuff? And we decide to build a mini bonfire in it.

Since I'm a small child I sit there in amazement like "wow! this is so cool!" while the others work their magic.

Now, I don't remember who's idea it was (probably one of my cousins) but somebody suggested that we see if the fire lasts in the container on water.

So we place it on the river and set off. It floats! And the fire continues to burn! It gets a little out of reach quickly and we realise we can't get it back. No worries, the river is connecting into the ocean, whatever.

But then...it doesn't start heading towards the ocean, but starts heading back up stream...where the forest is...

Just to point out, this forest is pretty overgrown so it could easily catch fire.

Another point to make is that there hasn't been any rain in a good few weeks.

So yeah, a couple of stupid teenagers and a preteen are now panicking because holy shit, we're gonna get into so much trouble. Much more trouble than ever before.

We/They got into trouble for everything by the way, it was a little unfair in some ways. This time however? We'd get what was coming to us.

Thankfully, this part of the beach was hardly sandy and mostly stony.

We picked up as many stones as possible and start chucking them at the floating tub of death, trying to sink it's.

Soon we realised that this thing wasn't going to sink before heading under the bridge and out of our reach.

It then appears that every time someone gets close enough, splashing the water, the fire goes out a bit more.

Plan B: Drench it!

Stones are being flung everywhere in this river, we aren't even supposed to be throwing stones because it scares off the fish but we figured that stopping a fire was more important.

Eventually it gets to the point where we can't see the flicker of a flame, but we throw a few extra stones to be on the safe side...

And then it's out of reach.

I don't remember much after that, but I remember my older cousin making the comment:

"You'll hear on the news tonight about how a couple of stupid kids on a caravan site managed to burn down half of Scotland's countryside."

We were all so nervous and shaken up that on the journey back to the campsite we joked and laughed about the fact that holy shit...we almost caused a forest fire...

What a day that was...

And we never told the parents. Nobody but us, and now the Internet, knows what we did.

So do NOT go reporting me to any authorities. Please.