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One of my wife's asthma inhalers once inadvertently wound up in the fireplace. It took off like a mortar. I thank God no one was in front of the fireplace when it punched a hole through the screen and smacked the opposite wall.
Are you guys familiar with those small CO2 ampules used in pellet rifles? On a camping trip back in the Spring of 1984, we'd built a huge bonfire. It must've been ten feet in diameter, with flames five or six feet high.
My cousin noticed the "DO NOT INCINERATE" warning on the box, and I took the dare. I tossed one of those into the heart of that fire and we both dove for cover behind nearby trees. About five seconds after landing in the embers, the ampule ruptured with a deafening report.
All that carbon dioxide also snuffed the fire out in an instant, like flicking a switch. All that remained was a fountain of ash and glowing embers, which rained back down on us, starting little fires which we spent fifteen minutes extinguishing. We also laughed ourselves weak.
We'd been drinking beer, too - but we were still smart enough to pull that stunt only when we were the only people around, AND could find sufficient cover.
When I was younger and pop still came in 500 ml bottles with metal caps, I once put one, mostly filled with water and capped tightly, into a fire. Took a while for the water to get to boiling, but eventually it blew, quite spectacularly. Burning embers could be seen 100 yards up and down the beach in either direction. I was actually standing over the fire poking the bottle with a stick when it blew. I don't know how neither my friend or I ended up with a shard of glass in an eye. Actually, I never could find even the tiniest trace of the bottle afterwards.