Is this why they're called "buttheads"?

[wolfie]

Stopped at my local gas station to pick up the free alternative weeklies, and on my way back to my car I smelled wood smoke. Turned out that in the landscaping, there was a tree in a square of mulch set into the sidewalk, with a blackened (and smoking) patch in the mulch. Looks like someone had tossed a lit cigarette butt into the mulch

To the Tim Hortons at the gas station: Thanks for the 2 large cups of water.

To whoever caused the problem: May someone repay the favour with the flower beds in front of your house - and while rushing to deal with it, may you step in the results of someone not scooping up after their pestspets.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That happened outside of the building I worked in when I worked for Public Television. The fire had been going for a bit, and it took two of us with fire extinguishers to put it out. Quite a long stretch down the gutter was involved.

Nice.

[bhskittykatt]

At work, we lost a hedge by the pool when someone flicked a cigarette butt out their window. It was in the middle of summer, it was dry, and the thing went up in flames very, very quickly. It took two extinguishers and a hose to finally get it all out.

On my paper route, Hubby and I smelled wood smoke, which we didn't think was unusual until we noticed it was coming from a block of apartments that didn't have fireplaces. Found a patch of smoldering and smoking mulch that appeared to have been started by a cigarette butt. Called the fire dept to come out and take care of it since we didn't have any water.

[ReverendBSB]

Someone burned down an IHOP in Baton Rouge tossing a cigarette in the landscaping out front.

[PepperElf]

that's one thing i hate... people who think the world is their trash can - or in this case their ash tray... no flipping common sense.

hell i don't know if the rumor is true or not but there was one circulating that a ship that caught on fire a couple of years ago... started because someone was smoking inside. they all told us "improper hazmat stowage" which may have been true, but the rumor mill states a butt as the spark that set it off.

[HawaiianShirts]

Yeah, that makes me angry, too. Good thing you were around to put the fire out.

I've never personally seen butts start fires. I just see them flung to the ground anywhere and everywhere--on the sidewalk, in front of stores, on the lawn, right next to the ashtray, from the open window of a moving vehicle (which really baffles me because I always thought fire + car = bad). I don't understand why some smokers think it's okay to do this.

I did see one guy leaning against the wall outside of a Target once. He finished his cigarette and, instead of putting it in the ash tray not 15 feet away from him, he flicked it into the walkway between the parking stalls and the store's entrance. I happened to be walking near there at the time, and I yelled, "Dude! Ash tray!" and pointed at one. He gave me the finger and walked into the store. I didn't follow (I was shopping at the next store over anyway), but I really wanted to tell him off.

[jedimaster91]

Hubs and I saw a mulch fire at a Fricsh's that was started by a cigarette butt. And after we finished helping the employees put the fire out, we saw another employee toss a butt into the mulch. >.<

[Dreamstalker]

When I had my studio apartment, I came out one morning to the smell of smoke and a fire truck right out front (no smoke detectors had been tripped). There was one fireman with a large water extinguisher spraying a small mulch fire on my building's side of the door (I was still able to get out). Several just-planted flowers were blackened.

I asked what happened, and the chief's response was "Some asshole with a cigarette." (probably passing my building on the way to the trolley stop). This was during an unusual dry spell, so it could have been quite a bit worse; there was ivy climbing up the building not far from the charred flowers.

There's an ashtray in front of the 7-11 about fifty yards up

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Someone set a guy's car on fire who was on the way to Pennsic one year flicking one out of a car window. It got sucked into the backseat of a car with an open window and set his backseat on fire. Guy took pictures and posted them at check in when he finally made it to Pennsic.

The cigarette flicker should be nailed into a glass filled barrel and rolled down a hill for that.

[wolfie]

I've heard about a self-pwnage by a butt-tosser (don't know if it's true or an urban legend). A trucker tossed a lit cigarette butt out his window. He was pulling a flatbed loaded with hay. Guess where the butt landed and what the result was.

[MadMike]

According to the nasty-grams that get emailed out, it happens all the time at my job. The only place people are allowed to smoke is in the parking garage, and even then only in certain parts. Despite the receptacles they have set up in the smoking areas, idiots are throwing them over the edge, where they land in the tan bark, or off the catwalks where they're landed on people's heads.

Every so often, they send out a company-wide email threatening to move the smoking area somewhere even less convenient, or ban it outright. But nothing ever happens, besides a bunch of pissing and moaning.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

The day a butt lands on my head is the day ya'll hear about me on the six o'clock news.

[Seshat]

I put out someone else's cigarette again today. I'm sure a lot of us have done that.

Thank you to all of you who've put out someone else's cigarette-caused fire.

[ZedOmega]

Unforgiveable. That idiot couldn't have just found an ashtray nearby to put his cigarette into? Or at least ground it out on the sidewalk before tossing it? Geez, I don't even throw my butts onto the street, let alone into landscaping...

[DeltaSierra]

Many years ago, I was taking my garbage out and smelled smoke. Looking around, I discovered a CHAIR that had been discarded by one of the apartment tennants. Somebody had flicked a cig out the window of their vehicle and it landed on it! I immediately called the fire dept (they were just down the block) and they came and put it out.

Also at the same apartment the year before, a discarded couch had caught fire when the power lines started sparking following a power outage.