Our neighbors in upstate NY did the same to unfreeze water pipes for the over garage apt. Whole garage went up in minutes. It was quite a sight.
About 25 years ago, our neighbor, who had moved here to the south from NY, decided to rid his property of little pine trees that grow by the side of a driveway on rural “self-maintained” acreage.
Anyway, He went down the drive with a drip-torch setting each little combustible pine sapling on fire, never looking behind him. Who knows where he got the idea from? A machete would have worked just as well. By the time he got to the end of his driveway (about 2/10s of a mile), and turned around, the undergrowth in the woods on each side of his driveway were on fire. We weren’t aware until we heard the fire trucks, and then we went outside and saw the smoke. We headed that way through our own woods with potato rakes in hand raking fire-stop paths as we went.
He definitely learned a life lesson about living in the country and the fire-feeding sap of pine trees!
It’s amusing to look back on now, but at the time, I was imaging all our trees and the animals’ habitat burning down and leaving us with nothing but charred land.
After that, he and his wife boarded up the house and moved back to NY. He arrived, sans wife, about five years ago, and is back in residence. No fire yet!