About 15 years ago when I was working on soil sampling rigs,

my parents bought me a new set of Carhartt bibs and a coat for Christmas. They were great. That January I was doing some work near Ottawa, IL when it warmed up over a long weekend, got muddy and then refroze, freezing the augers to the ground (augers = fluted pipes used to drill, about 5 feet long). The drillers put a large propane torch in one end an auger in an attempt to unfreeze it. Really hot air was blowing out the other end, so I moved over in front of it to stay warm while I made some notes.

What I didn’t see were the flames from the torch were traveling all the way down the auger. After a minute or so I noticed that I had set my self on fire. The drillers helped put me out but not before the fire had burnt off the bottom front half of my new Carhart bibs. Needless to say, the drillers were amused. They had to stop working for a while to get over it.