# Darwin award in the making. Flame + fuel vapor + spider = fire! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 28, 2015, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836 "2015-09-28T13:25:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/21 "2015-09-28T20:33:11Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Um. The equation one? > > I object! The “spider” term is completely unnecessary! Flame + fuel vapors are sufficient! > > Besides, this ironic universe probably guarantees the spider got away. Objections about moderator actions, especially those dealing with spiders, belong in ATMB. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/22 "2015-09-28T20:45:08Z")
Paging [ExTank](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10248359&postcount=34)… On rereading that post, I see that he didn’t specify _what_ was in the warehouse his latter arachnid/fire shenanigans occurred in. It was an Army warehouse, though, so I hope I can be forgiven for imagining a potential disaster of epic scope. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/23 "2015-09-28T20:48:23Z")
I’m going to pretend that **CalMeacham** ’s title remaines, so that I can add another example of over-reaction to spiders. > **[Police: Woman jumps from car after seeing spider, causes crash](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/21/indiana-car-spider-crash/72555298/)** > > The Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a car crash involving a school bus and a "driverless" vehicle near Syracuse, Indiana, that left a 9-year-old boy injured. Woman sees a spider while pulling out of driveway with a child in the car, and jumps out of the moving car. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/24 "2015-09-28T21:01:39Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > I’m going to pretend that **CalMeacham** ’s title remaines, so that I can add another example of over-reaction to spiders. > > [Police: Woman jumps from car after seeing spider, causes crash](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/21/indiana-car-spider-crash/72555298/) > > Woman sees a spider while pulling out of driveway with a child in the car, and jumps out of the moving car. Aw, man…! I read this whole thread to make sure no linked that story (which I saw in this morning’s paper) so I could. Get to the very last post and… ---
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/25 "2015-09-28T21:28:17Z")
The thing that bothers me about this guy is the fact that of all the ways he could have dealt with this spider, he chose a lighter. A small lighter which would require him to get up close and personal with the very creature he’s deathly afraid of. ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/26 "2015-09-28T21:41:05Z")
> [@Dante\_G](#): > > The thing that bothers me about this guy is the fact that of all the ways he could have dealt with this spider, he chose a lighter. A small lighter which would require him to get up close and personal with the very creature he’s deathly afraid of. Not all Americans have guns, ok. Don’t be racist. Also, spiders are small targets and can be very hard to hit with a firearm, which is why this guy basically improvised a flame thrower instead. He was intelligent enough to realize that with the amount of gasoline vapor around the spider, a lighter would allow him to create a fireball to finish it off. The fire did get a little bit out of hand, granted, but this was still a very successful combat operation. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/27 "2015-09-28T21:42:43Z")
Here’s a related story featuring an idiot, a gas station, and a Spyder. The title here should be “[Fuel vapor + Spyder = fire!](http://globalnews.ca/news/1587708/watch-rare-porsche-918-spyder-catches-fire-at-ontario-gas-station/)” No flame necessary, and no arachnid. Just a gas station and a Porsche 918 Spyder hybrid (starting price US$845,000, $1 million in Canada). tl;dr version: car is mid-engine, has various vents near the upper part of the rear deck. Darwin nominee is fueling the car, splashes fuel around the filler area. So far, no harm done. Darwin nominee, concerned about the spill on super-expensive car, grabs squeegee and pushes spilled fuel backward **in the direction of the hot engine vents**. Fuel spills inside, fuel go boom! Million-dollar car totaled. Paint job no longer a concern. This wasn’t even an ordinary idiot, it was a well-known investor and star of a national investment reality show. Seems like a nice guy but a bit eccentric. I don’t think he was ever asked about it on the air. I would really like to know – in both the OP story and this one – what the insurance companies had to say about owners basically setting fire to their own cars. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836/28 "2015-09-29T01:44:34Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > I can sympathize. I’ve never set my car on fire over them, but I did freak out when an itsy-bitsy spider was on the interior windshield of the rental car I was driving. My rider (a work colleague), finally had me pull over so she could deal with it. She still occassionally reminds me of it. > > And I was 56 at the time… I was driving when a small green lynx spider crawled along the steering, traversing my hands in the process. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darwin-award-in-the-making-flame-fuel-vapor-spider-fire/732836.md?page=1)