Today’s award goes to a group of unidentified schoolchildren in England.
Children burning their books on the last day of school found themselves in hot water after the blaze reached power lines and knocked out electricity to almost 140,000 homes.
Police believe the blaze that caused buildings across east London and Essex to be without power was started by students taking part in a celebratory burning ritual.
Flames rising from blazing planners and exercise books, which were set alight in a park in Upminster, east London, torched power cables in a bridge above.
. . .
Police are investigating the cause as an arson by schoolchildren in the ritual gone wrong, sources confirmed.
A source said: “They’re not yet sure whether the damage was deliberate or accidental, but officers believe they may have identified them now.
“You can imagine they are quite nervous after that little celebration.”
There’s more at the link.
I’ve heard of being on fire for learning, but this is ridiculous!
Peter
That's what we who have served in the fire service refer to as an IBBA event: caused by an itty-bitty badass.
See I was going to go with the Homer Simpson, "DOH!" 🙂
Anyone who would burn his own books does not deserve to have any.
Antibubba
While I have kept all of mine, burning exercise books and planners doesn't really count as "burning books"… Planners are about 50-70% pre-printed crap and 20-30% empty (that'd be the spaces between all those lines, very few of which will contain letters). Exercise books are even worse, as they rarely contain a single original thought.