How to Light a Bonfire with Rockets

The following is for informational purposes only; don't be idiots like we are.

Hey, it's me, Destin. Mechanical Engineer, University of Alabama. Big loser, likes to play with rockets. This is my buddy Stephen, Electrical engineer, not as much of a loser as I am. This is my other buddy Steve-o—wait, wait... Ok, this is my buddy Steve-o. And as you can tell from the red suspenders, he's not a loser at all. This is my cute little three month old daughter, Sadie. She helps out a lot... [louder and deeper] because she's a pyro.

Alright, let's talk about stuff you're gonna need to make a cool bonfire. First, find lots of a nice lightweight string. You'll need a few strips of glass tape, some refrigerator water supply line, an unburned bonfire, an electric match, a rocket igniter, rather large bottle rockets, and of course, every twelve-year-old's favorite accelerant, "La Gasolina."

Ok, first things first, you gotta build the devices. Take an 8-ounce bottle rocket. First, remove the stick and also remove the paper. Then, retrieve a one-quarter inch refrigerator water supply line. Then, tape it to the rocket—in the front and in the back. Make sure to offset it so that when the rocket burns, it won't burn through the string. There, you made the rocket. Yeah, you're a mega genius. Now there's only one other thing to do—make more... lots more.

Now that your rockets are ready, prepare the target. As Steve-o demonstrates here, secure the denim string to the base of the bonfire. And then pull it back to a safe location from which you can launch the rocket. Keep in mind that some rockets fly a little farther before they go boom. Use the stick that you broke off the rocket to push the string through the tubing. It's important that the tubing has a chamfered edge on its inside so that it can funnel the string through itself rather than cutting it as it flies down the line.

Put the gas at the base of the fire, and remember [laughs] more is better. [Unknown announcer voice] Remember kids, don't try this at home. [Destin] Try it at someone else's home. Think that's enough? [Unknown] Add a little bit more. [Destin] Yeah... that's enough.

Now that the target's set, here comes the hard part. Tape the electric match to the fuse on the rocket, making sure that when the fuse burns, the wires can fall freely. For this particular demonstration, we're going to use four rockets. That of course means we're gonna need four strings. You may wish to position the rockets from different angles. For instance, here's rocket one, here's rocket two, here's rocket three, and here's rocket four.

We've got them all set and we're using, as all Alabamians do, my truck as the command center. Now, if you wanna somewhat synchronize the rocket firings, you've gotta run all the wires back to a central location from which you can fire them all at the same time. Now this isn't exactly rocket science. Now, if it were rocket science, we are rocket scientists, so that would be handy, but anyway, I digress.

This is the hard part—make sure you wire everything up safely, making sure you keep a short on the match at all times until the moment you're ready to fire it. You can see here we've run everything back to a control box so we can fire it at the desired time. If you have any doubts, get your friendly neighborhood electrical engineer to wire everything up for you.

Of course, when he has trouble, you can just go call a Mechanical guy to help you since we're using the tailgate as a staging point for the rockets. We here used the truck battery to power the circuit. After a few last-minute electrical checks, you're ready for one of two things: either A: fame and immortality in redneck lore, or B: a Darwin award.

3... 2... 1... Fire! So there you have it. I don't really know what you were expecting, but I'm sure this was probably anticlimactic for you. But anyway, there you go, that's how you light a bonfire. Oh, and by the way, this is just another example that Christians can have fun too. If you're interested to see how God lights bonfires, go to your Bible, read 1st Kings Chapter 18.