Before 2009 the Fish & Wildlife Service allowed duck hunters on the Upper Mississippi River to have permanent duck blind. We could build a blind and leave it out on the river for us or anyone else to use during the duck & Goose hunting season. Many years ago I made a duck blind kitchen. It was a wooden box with everything we needed for preparing coffee and breakfast out in the duck blind. It had a compartment for a gasoline campstove. My pancakes, named, "duck blind pancakes", became quite famous on and around the river. The Coleman campstove was in new in 1971 and after 30 years the control knob had questionable integrity. It didn't always turn off the fuel to the flame.
I was duck hunting with my son-in-law, Tony, one morning and was frying up some bacon for breakfast. Tony was on lookout while I fixed breakfast. Tony says, "Jim, some ducks are coming", so I turned off the stove to watch the approaching ducks. We watched the ducks for several minutes then all of a sudden Tony says, Jim, the blind is on fire!! Sure enough, flames are wafting through the cracks in the duck blind roof and igniting the grass used for camouflage . We are slapping out the flames with our gloves only to have the flames return. I finally decided to look under the roof to see what could be causing such a blaze. There the Coleman stove engulfed in flames and the bacon was on fire as well, the flames were 3 feet high. I decide the bacon needs to go so I through the flaming frying pan and bacon out the front of the blind onto a sand bar. I turn back to the Coleman stove, it still has flames shooting upward to the roof. Tony is still slapping out the flames with his gloves. I tell Tony, "open the door the stove's going out". He opens the door, I throw the stove as far from the blind that I can. I still vividly remember the stove tumbling through the air, still fully engulfed in flames. It crashes to the ground and rolls across the swamp grass. By some miracle the swamp grass did not ignite. Tony is using a freshly made pot of coffee to put out the duck blind fire. In a mater of seconds it's over. The duck blind that didn't belong to us was a little scorched but still usable. The bacon was a loss and the Coleman stove looked as if it had gone through a war.
I think the problem with the stove was my own fault, I overfilled the tank with the white gas. The stove was burning raw gas instead of a gas and air mix.
I often wondered if any other duck hunters may have witnessed the infamous duck blind fire as my son-in-law and I named the episode. It must have been something to see
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