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Watch: Men Joke Near Burning Snowmobile, Forget About Gas Tank

By Joe Saunders February 15, 2018 at 5:33pm

It’s all fun and games until the snowmobile blows up.

That was the lesson a group of apparent outdoor enthusiasts learned — to their sorrow — in a video that was posted on YouTube back in 2014 but is still plenty instructive today.

The YouTube posting didn’t include much in the way of details about the location or exact time of the incident it documents, but you get the implication from the writing that no one took it quite as seriously as they should have.

Here’s the description with the video:

“Our buddies sled burn to the ground and there wasnt a thing we could do except watch. There was a gas leak and when he pulled it over, flames shot out by his feet! The explosion you see here is actually one of the shocks.”

And here’s the actual video itself. The real money shot comes about the 34 second mark, but the buildup – especially the relaxed chatter in the background – is worth the wait. (Note: Some rough language.)

With apologies to America’s neighbor to the north — some explosion, eh? (The best part is how far away they are when recording resumes.)

Joking aside, this is the kind of situation where someone could have gotten badly hurt, because no one apparently took into account the fact a snowmobile runs on an internal combustion engine, and internal combustion engines run on pretty combustible fuels.

Does this incident turn you off the idea of snowmobiling?

Hanging around and joking while a vehicle is burning, in dangerously close proximity to a ready source of contained gas and gas fumes, is an excellent way to find yourself in the path of metal turned into shrapnel by an all-but-inevitable explosion.

Some commenters thought a group of guys faced with a small fire, and surrounded by literally tons of snow, should have been fairly safe.

This one asks some obvious questions.

But that wasn’t as easy as it looked.

It just goes to show that even the hardiest outdoorsmen need to be prepared for any eventuality when headed out into the wilderness – even if it’s aboard a rugged snowmobile that’s meant to take on winter at its worst.

And for Pete’s sake, never stand next to a fire when there’s a gas tank heating up inches away.

Like and share on Facebook and Twitter if you think there’s a lesson in this video for everyone.

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Joe Saunders

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015.

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.

Birthplace

Philadelphia

Nationality

American