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I remember a gas accident many years ago. An older teenager at camp was changing a small gas cylinder in the open and forgot about his lit cigarette. Too late to stop him. Horrendous burns and hospital for long time.

I hope the folk at the Dart campsite are soon recovering from their ordeal.

Only a couple of weekends ago I was watching a couple of men (foreign tourists) trying to light a small cooker, the type with piezo ignition that uses a self sealing cartridge. It looked as if the cartridge they were using was too short and they were trying to hold it in place by jamming a piece of cardboard at the bottom end.

Every time they connected it I could hear the gas escaping but to my astonishment one of them clicked the piezo and was nearly engulfed in a ball of flame as the whole lot caught fire. Fortunately the cartridge popped out and the flames extinguished themselves, but not content with that the second man then had another go by trying to light it with a cigarette lighter and once again it went up in flames. He had to flick the lever off to extinguish it. I think they both ended up with singed eyebrows...I couldn't believe what they were doing.

I offered to lend them my cooker but they declined the offer and continued trying to get the gas cartridge fitted properly. Eventually somebody gave them a new cartridge which fitted and insisted they used it before they blew the whole camp up!