I worked on a dairy farm one summer. Halfway through, they decided I was ready to drive a tractor. It was the hottest day of the summer and the tractor they gave me was normally used to scrape (cow)shit up from the yard where the cows wait to be milked. It was a tractor with a low exhaust pipe. A pipe covered in shit.
You do know they burn cowshit for fuel in many parts of the world? Can you think of another incendiary you might find on a dairy farm? Something they use to feed cows? Something, that when dry, can get set on fire really fast? Like…. hay?
They sent me out into the field on the hottest day of the summer in a little tractor with cowshit all over the hot exhaust pipe in order to rake the hay. That is, pile it up so it would be easy to bale.
I shall leave it to your imagination as to what happens when a bit of burning cowshit drops into a pile of nicely dried hay.
I’m not sure I was accident prone… although a few days later, I would be a lot more sure. But I will say that when you’re 17, and hot as hell, and you don’t know shit (literally), your concern, when smelling a burning smell, is to find someplace cool to stop and investigate the problem.
Big mistake!