How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire???

I believe that comes under one of Murphy's Laws. Right after the law about the $1Bn machine being stopped by the failure of a 25 cent part.

OBG,

That could be the start of your book on outdoor truisms!

Having gone to college in Iowa ...

There is a story that for whatever reason state game officials in Iowa tried several times to introduce a breeding population of ring-necked pheasants into the wild (they are native to Asia), but without any success. Just before another attempt, while the birds were housed in cages, a substantial windstorm broke open the cages and the birds escaped...only to start a very successful breeding population in the wild. Murphy strikes when least expected.

I guess it could. But I can't claim it, someone else made it up, I just passed it along...

I believe that comes under one of Murphy's Laws. Right after the law about the $1Bn machine being stopped by the failure of a 25 cent part.

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Would you feel better if it was a million dollar part that failed, or would you feel worse?

a substantial windstorm broke open the cages and the birds escaped...only to start a very successful breeding population in the wild

I heard a similar reason for the semi-official bird of the Island of Kauai. It's these red roosters, they are wild, and are literally everywhere on the island. When we vacationed there, someone said that there was a big storm, broke all the cages, and they were let loose on the island with no natural predators, something like that. There are places where you park, and they'll waltz right up to your car. Murphy is even in Hawaii...

I think it's one of Murphy's Laws, all right, but it's the one of inverse ratios: It all depends on how badly you need that fire to start. If you don't care if it starts and even prefer that it doesn't, it takes one match to burn down the Angeles National Forest. But if it's raining sideways, you have no shelter but an indentation in the side of a large rock and really NEED a fire for the warmth to save your life, you'd better have a gallon of straight denatured alcohol, six boxes of matches, and half a dozen 30-minute road flares.

Sue