Use The Blue Can

Gather ‘round kids as I tell a story from 1985. A dear friend I have lost contact with, W.C. Hoecke was the maintenance director at Lake Beauty. Earlier in the year he gave the obligatory training lecture to all us camp summer staff regarding how to properly light a fire using Boy Scout Juice.

Diesel fuel, found in the blue cans, was a much safer way to start a fire than gasoline, in the red can. Diesel fuel, in the blue can, burned much slower than gasoline, in the red can. In fact, diesel fuel, in the blue can, is not nearly as explosive as gasoline, in the red can, making it the safer alternative to getting those campfires going quickly. Got the point? Use the blue can. Blue can good, red can bad. Bad red can. Bad. Fire bad. Red can bad. Blue good.

A hundred yards behind the camp chapel was the gravel pit. It had not been used for years so it was decided to throw anything that was burnable into it. We’d wait for the right conditions (wet grass, full foliage on the trees, etc.) and have a giant bonfire. Well, the pile grew and grew into a heap literally the size of a house. But its size would not be a problem because it was in a huge gravel pit, and gravel does not burn.

I was the up-front person in the morning chapel session that day when an enormous explosion completely rocked the building. It rattled the windows so hard we thought they would break. For a second we thought it was a stray bomb from nearby Fort Ripley Army Firing Range. We could occasionally hear explosions and see flares in the distant sky to the north. But nothing nearly this big had ever been heard before. It scared the bejeebers out of us! But whatever I was doing with the campers it was my duty to press on, making them think huge explosions happened all the time.

Moments later, from my vantage point, I saw W.C. wandering dazed, like a drunk hobo trying to stay on his feet. I quickly grabbed a replacement and ran out the back door. Immediately I saw a huge fire in the gravel pit and could see several smoky fires burning all over the field. I quickly made my way toward W.C. One look at him told me something did not go as he had planned. His face was sunburned, his eyelashes and eyebrows were singed, and the front of his hair was curled back like he had used a super-heated curling iron. “Are you O.K.? What happened?” I asked. He just kept mumbling, “I used the blue can. I used the blue can.”

By then the camp nurse found W.C. and started her triage. Other camp staff started running from all over the camp toward the source of the explosion. The campers just kept singing, oblivious to the event unfolding just outside. W.C. had used the blue can. In fact, he used almost all of what was in the blue can. He climbed all over that burn pile soaking to the bottom. But it took him a few minutes to do this. As the diesel dripped down deep into the pile, it slowly vaporized, creating an explosive mixture of fuel and air. By the time he climbed off that pile and ran a thin diesel trail away from it, like a fuse, he had inadvertently created a bomb.

He touched his match to the diesel fuse and it slowly made its way toward the pile. As it lit the deepest part of the pile the fuel-air mixture exploded hurling fuel-soaked timber all over the field. It was truly a miracle he lived to tell us what happened. With W.C. now being cared for, the rest of us ran around the field putting out the flames.

Every summer since 1985, this story has been told to every new LBBC summer staffer as part of the safety training. I am reminded of what Jeff Meyer used to tell us that summer. Indian build small fire sit close. White man build big fire sit far away. Remember to use the blue can. And always remember kids, fire bad.