Firing the pit

So at this point the pit is all loaded and lovingly packed in the best and carefulest way I could devise. It was then drenched with lighter fuel and I lit a long match and tossed it in, below.

There was a massive and terrifying explosion which blew me backwards, actually blew me backwards and kind of sideways, just like in the movies. Flaming newspaper went everywhere and lodged in the blossoms of the long-suffering cherry tree whose trunk you can observe in the right of the picture below. (It was exactly like in Return of the King when they toss the ring into Mount Doom and Tolkien says "there was a great roar and confusion of noise. Flames leapt up and licked the roof." Yes, I know that passage by heart. Nerd digression is now over.)

ANYWAY.

Here is the chaos.

Here is after we stamped out the flames and chased the flying combustibles back into the pit where they belong.

After about forty minutes it had burned down to this. You can see the rims of the pieces poking out.

Here's after an hour. Everything's still very hot. I was really freaking out about the fact that what you can see of the pieces is just white; I thought it hadn't worked. And the pit didn't cool down that night so I couldn't take the pieces out before I went to bed, so I actually did dream a) that everything had exploded and b) that they all came out just like they had gone in. This is not the case as you will soon see.