Speakin'a bonfire mishaps...
When we were 18 or something, a buddy of mine had a fire at his place and after a while started dicking around with the gas can. (This was after he was playing with a sword he had bought, trying to throw it like Conan into a tree. He thought about dousing it in gasoline and then throwing a flame sword around, and he was serious about it, but I told him no.) He kept making these little gas trails and then lighting them on fire. It was pretty fun. But then one time he did it reversed: he slung gas at the fire, and it trailed all the way back into the can.
Thinking the can would explode (this ain't the movies, dude), he panicked and chucked the thing—only in his panic, he accidentally threw it toward the house, and it fell in a window well. The whole gas can was a fireball at this point, and the only way we could think (without having a fire extinguisher around) to not set the house ablaze was to create a constant water barrier between the house and can using the hose; there was maybe a foot of space distancing the two.
It did the job and the can burned out after a few minutes and all was saved. His dad wasn't home so we didn't get our asses beat, but a year or two later while washing dishes, the dishwasher caught fire and burned the whole kitchen down, so he eventually burned down the house anyway.