What's the worst thing that's happened to you in the workshop?

[Wood Butcher]

I was living in Texas at the time (Dallas area), and it was during one of the hottest and driest part of the summer. I was outside the garage doing some fabrication work (cutting, welding and grinding) since I wanted to keep the grit away from my machine tools.

It was a bright, windless summer day (over 90°F) and it hadn't rained in weeks. What was once a nice lush, green lawn between the garage and house had long since turned to a dry, crunchy carpet that barely covered the sandy soil.

While I was attempting to be mindful of my surroundings as I worked, a few stray sparks from the angle grinder got into the tinder box formerly known as the lawn. I wasn't aware of it until the dog started barking very excitedly and I picked up the smell of dry vegetation burning. As soon as I turned around, I saw this huge patch of charred ground, edged by a few wisps of smoke, growing ever larger and racing toward the house. Yep, a grass fire.

I managed to safely put my tools down, grab the garden hose, and douse the flames before they reached the house. The patch of charred ground was within a few feet of the house...major pucker factor on that one. Needless to say, there were some words of admonishment spoken when SWMBO arrived home shortly after.

There were a couple of upsides to this:

- There were no sand burrs to be found in that area for the rest of the year. The dog was constantly picking them up on her paws and tracking them into the house. A rather nasty thing to find with your bare feet.

- The lawn in the charred area came back even thicker and greener the next year.

Lesson learned...when doing any kind of spark-generating work around dry vegetation, thoroughly water down any place where you think a spark has even a remote chance of landing. And keep the hose close.