"Dr. Deb" wrote

Welllllllll, you could have had my "almost" day. A couple of days ago I
went out to the shop after the temp made its way in the the mid 40's
(10:30
or so) and got the stove ready to light a fire. While cleaning out the
ash,
I noticed I had some live coals, so (being the great frontier's man that I
am) I used the coals to get the fire lit. Everything was going like it
oughta, the fire was coming up, the shop was warming up (the stove is on
one side of a partition and the shop is on the other side). So I am
working
away and notice it is just about Noon, but I have some round overs to run
and then I will break for lunch. Just then I noticed billows of smoke
coming through the door. I ran to the door and saw flames beside the
stove
(they were supposed to be INSIDE it). I ran out side, grabbed the hose and
doused the flames. It seems that I had not used ALL the live coals and my
ash bucked it a plastic 5gal bucket, that I have been using for years.

All I lost was a few brown paper bags and the 5gal bucket. But had I not
delayed going to lunch those few minutes, I would have come back to a
smoking ruin. I would not have minded losing the tools so much as several
hundred board feet of mahogany, over 150bft each of ash, and walnut and a
couple hundred bft of jarrah - plus the stash of bits and pieces.

As it was, all I lost was the paper bags and the painted table the bags
were
under was not even scorched.

It could have been a totally different story - God is soooooooo good.

I have two metal cans with handles and lids. Very heavy duty and solid.
Good for anything hot or oily. If it can catch fire, it goes in the can and
then goes outside onto concrete away from any structures.

The two salient points are METAL container and OUTSIDE. You can't get into
too much trouble that way. To quote an old computer security specialist I
knew, "It is not a matter of being paranoid. It is a matter of being
paranoid ENOUGH."

If you are paranoid enough, safety conscious enough and redundant, you won't
have close calls like the one you described above.