I'm posting this here in the open discussions in the hopes that anyone who uses a butane torch lighter will consider my recent experience before they buy or use a certain type of butane lighter. I'll go into the type of butane lighter I was using later. I was recently relaxing in the back lounge of a cool cafe when I decided to use my butane torch lighter. The next thing I know I am completely enveloped in a massive fireball. I can feel it on my legs, on my arms, IN MY FACE! Everything I see is a huge wall of flame! Suddenly it is over and I am extremely lucky to find that except for some singed arm and facial hair and some now shitty underwear I am actually OK. I survived a huge enveloping fireball and came out unharmed. There was only one witness to this and he was completely dumb struck. He said it was the single most incredible thing he had ever seen and was amazed that I came out of it OK without serious damage. What happened is the bottom of the lighter suddenly for no reason popped off and dumped its entire load of compressed liquid butane right in front of me.

A while back I bought several torch type plastic butane lighters. They were relatively cheap, could easily refill from a butane can and produced really nice torch type flames. I got a single flame torch lighter and several other that produced two and three torches as I like these for lighting cigars and large thick glass bowls with herbs in them. All of them had the same basic design, a push button on top that opened the top and exposed the torch element and the piezo crystal that lights the butane. The bottom has a plastic ring that interfaces with the volume control of the butane - this controls the amount of butane coming out of the top and therefore how big or small your flame it. This is the design flaw. Most lighters have a metal part at the bottom that allows you to insert a flat head screw driver and adjust the flame up or down. These lighters incorporated a plastic piece around this piece of metal that spins completely around and appears to not be affixed to the bottom of the lighter with much more than an interior ring of plastic. I now know that it can and will pop off, even if one is not exerting any pressure on it. Once it pops off it allows the pressurized liquid butane held inside to escape rapidly. This will happen again if I continue to use this type of plastic butane torch lighter. I am now in the process of gathering up all of the ones I have bought over the years and stashed in backpacks and glove boxes and drawers and desks so that I do not have to content with more exploding enveloping walls of flame. I think I will not invest in an all metallic butane torch so that there is no longer a high probability of all the butane escaping at once.

Check your lighters my friends and protect yourself against an experience like I just had. Mine could have and probably should have ended a lot differently with me nursing really bad burns or worse. Be careful.

Damn man, I'm glad you're ok.

Can't go wrong with Arc lighter

Thanks man, me too. It's one of those experiences that afterward makes the air taste sweeter, the stars look more amazing and brilliant, the sun feel healing on your face and make you more appreciative of the little things in life we so often take for granted. I love life and am pretty appreciative every day, but something like this comes along and it all looks even better and fresher. Glad to be alive, glad to be healthy.

Kind of sounds like the same result as a good DMT breakthrough (except for the singed hair part.)

Sounds like a Made in China special. Glad you're okay.

Yikes! thanks for the heads up! What are the best types of butane lighters? I'll need to get one for my GVG when the time comes to get one.

This is the one you want.

much obliged *bookmarks page*

Here are some images of the exploding torch lighter. The problem is the bottom where a plastic ring is held in place with a metal pressure adjuster that makes the flame go up or down. Now that I have seen one disassembled it is easy to see that the bottom can easily detach from the tank and dump all the liquid butane all at once. I am in the process of finding and throwing away all of these lighters in my household.

Yeah, I've got one just like that one with the triple torch. I don't use it often, so I doubt the bottom piece could be too loose. If I ever use it, I'll definitely keep this thread in mind and never use it near my face. Just for art or repairs.

Thanks for the heads up. Hopefully this will spare someone else.