The Exploding Trousers
Ah, reminds me of an incident in the mid-80s on a station "somewhere in the West"!
It was my final Orderly Officer duty and in the early evening I was called to attend a fire in one of the Airmens Barrack Blocks. It was largely smoke-logged and not very serious, evacuation was very rapid and all were safe - the main interest was the number of scantily-clad young ladies who emerged!
Cigarettes/matches were suspected but the investigation revealed a more bizarre cause. A Painter and Finisher had come off duty and, in a rush to get away for a hot date, had left his paint and reagent-splashed work trousers on his bed. The various mixtures had apparently created a chemical reaction generating sufficient heat to cause smouldering ignition of the trousers and his bed! Result = bags of horrible black/grey smoke, fire alarms, evacuation and a lot of embarrassed young ladies and gentlemen! I suspect that he never lived it down!
DS