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Subscribe to RSSA fire that destroyed eight units at an apartment complex in Holland Township, Mich., is believed to have been sparked by a man using a propane torch to cook a squirrel for lunch, the fire chief said.
The resident was on a deck on the third floor of the Clearview Apartments. He was using a the torch to burn off the squirrel’s fur when the deck caught fire, Fire Chief Jim Kohsel told MLive.com.
The resident, whose name was not released, was removing the animal’s fur in preparation to eat it, Kohsel said, according to mlive.com.
Flames spread to the roof and other parts of the building. Eight apartments were destroyed and two dozen other units were damaged by smoke and water, the fire chief said.
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The unusual cause of the blaze quickly became the talk at area fire stations.
“That’s about as off-the-wall as it gets,” Plainfield Township Fire Chief David Peterson told mlive.com.
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If I told you once I told you twice, broil the squirrels or cook it in a pot of stew. What's the matter with those people in Michigan. Save the torch for roadkill.
I guess the squirrel got the last laugh here.
The squirrel god "Conkers" was angered and set the place a flame.
Last time I tried to cook a groundhog with my plasma cutter, the same thing almost happened. Luckily I had a garden hose nearby.
Tastes like chicken . . .
Do people really eat animals without skinning it first? Did he even gut it? Yuck!
And why not lay it on a couple bricks or down on the parking lot, rather then fry it on a wood deck? He had to be on meth.
I often visit my relatives in Vietnam and have seen first hand how they handle a live chicken. Yes, there is very few frozen meat in Vietnam.
To prepare a chicken, first you slit its throat and drain all the blood onto a big bowl. Then you prepare a hot water container and dip it in, then you pluck its feather by hands and use tools to pluck all the hard feathers that didn't come off. After that, you gut the chicken, take out everything inside and clean it with warm water. Then after that you make a final clean with warm water.
That's how you prepare a chicken and I also saw how they prepare some piggies, dogs, ducks and more.
you can afford to pay rent and buy a blow torch but cant afford to buy a hoagie?
Lesson learned, never torch a squirrels nuts, ya askin' fa it
Lesson learned, never torch a squirrel's nuts, ya askin' fa truble....
"Ask first if the squirrel wants to be cooked." Unbelievable. What an effin moron!
Maybe it was roadkill
Eight families lost their homes and how many others damaged because someone was so careless using fire? How devastating for them with the tough economic situation already being what it is. My heart goes out to those who must start to rebuild their lives from scratch. As funny as the squirrel angle might seem to some, I sure hope others will look past that and learn something important so no one else need suffer from another person's foolish actions. Especially with winter coming right around the corner. At the very least then something positive may come from this preventable destruction and resulting consequences.
Thanks Obama for taking care of the United States first. Looking what people are doing just to survive. How about you quit sending aide to those that hate us and spend the money here
Might help if the squirrel's dead first, Skeeter... ya start'em on fire & they run for cover.
Squirrel tastes better when you char the hair first.
@Pedro Sanchez-2919871
Ahh yes, because when Obama became president, the US didn't have:
1. 2 Wars that we continue to support.
2. Housing bubble and global economic melt down.
3. Pay interest with the deficits.
4. Involve in Middle East in the first place.
With only those 4 points, can you wonder what happened if we didn't have them in first place? It's like back to 2000 again, oh I still remember the gas prices around that times compared to 4+ per gallon just before Bush left.
Seriously? You're talking politics in an article about freaking squirrels?? How idiotic is that?
The squirrel had nothing to do with the story. A better title would have been: "Dummy sparks fire that destroys eight apartments using a propane torch to cook!"
Windancersong-1494878
Your absolutely right, all them people out on the street! Maybe, some bank will put them up in some of the houses they foreclosed on?
Besides that, what about the sad state of Jethro's "Edumacation". I mean, really, being able to rent an apartment, and not knowing that including the deck in the BBQ wasn't a good choice!
@Pedro Sanchez-2919871,
People eat squirrels, have for centuries, and some prefer it to the tasteless plastic-wrapped crap in the Kroger meat department. There was a story a while back about some problem caused by eating scrambled squirrel brains, back during the Bush II administration, which might explain somethings, might not.
Squirrel, the other white meat - it's what's for dinner.....errr lunch...
In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil.
Armageddon!
I guess MSNBC doesn't like links? Search google for a felching session gone bad and click on the first result for YouTube named Hilarious News Story - Youtube
Eating furry Tree Rats is never a good idea.
Leave it to some tool to manage to somehow work Obama into a story about a burning squirrel. Poor Pedro just wants an increase to his welfare check.
The guy burned-out 8 apartments cooking one little squirrel! It's a good thing he passed on the raccoon. He might have burned down the entire block!!!
@ Pedro Sanchez-2919871,
Do you know who was President when aid started flowing to Pakistan?
Somebody please show this "city boy" how to properly skin wild game.
THAT WAS MY HUSBAND!!
WORST THING IS WE DIDN'T EVEN GETMTO EAT SQUIRREL SINCE POLICE TOOK IT!!!! I TOLD HIM NOT TO BE AN IDIOT BUT HE'S BEEN SO LAZY LAST FEW YEARS HE WON'T EVEN SKIN THEM!!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 . . . STEAK FOR MY FUTURE . . YOU PAY for ME!!!!
Police might want to do a drug test on the dude. You don't eat squirrel or any other small game with the skin on. only birds. Second question is was this road kill? Streets are very clean this fall. Only see the occasional skunks flattened.
Oh, Pedro - you poor, maladjusted, clueless TeaBagger. Lots of folks in hunting states enjoy a good squirrel on occasion, regardless of their economic status. You must be from Arizona, no? I'll bet ol' Lyin' Ryan never had the 'nads to eat squirrel...
ToreDown . . I ALWAYS GIVE THE 'NADS TO MY HUSBAND, I GET THE REST!!!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 . . . KEEP THE DREAM (AND ME) ALIVE!!!!
Squirrel is a standard hunting prey with a .22. So is rabbit. You just have to watch for parasites. I had a great aunt who, when my cousin shot some bluejays, cooked them up. This was in rural Missouri in the mid sixties and she was probably 80 at the time. I've seen BBQ raccoon also. If you were around during the Depression, like my great aunt, food was food. That was just her mind set. This guy though should have skinned and gutted it first. You might use a torch on a bird after you got all but the pin feathers off, but you still cook it. When I first read the headline I expected the guy to be homeless. Now I think just stupid.
Just because a dumbass decided to do this, does not mean that EVERYONE from Michigan is this retarded. Come on, now
Q. What's the difference between a squirrel and a hamster?
A. There's more dark meat on a hamster
Someone should send him a copy of Miss Kay's cookbook from Duck Dynasty. She most certainly knows how to cook squirrel. But they were skinned and filleted. (no thank you) :)
the man should have read the book: how to prepare squirrel. 99 favorite squirrel recipes by bullwinkle moose
Squirrel's eat Nuts. I guess nut's eat Squirrel's too!
This comment is empty!
'A squirrel's vengeance"....
What's wrong with this man, that doesn't understand that a squirrel is a disease-carrying animal and it's not meant for human consumption; if it were, they'd sell them in the grocery store.
This man ought to at least go visit the Deep South, where they eat all kind of vermin and learn how they cook it and eat it. Gross!
@Palyoos
LOL! Squirrels are FINE to eat and taste pretty good too even if they aren't much of a meal. The reason they are not sold in stores is because A-most people would never buy them and B- The only way you could possibly bring enough to market would be to raise them domestically. Can you even imagine what a squirrel farm would look like?
Aside from that, WTF was this guy doing burning the fur off?? Skin the little bugger and be done with it.
Just thinking about a squirrel farm....there even could be a saying: "crazy as a squirrel farm". Now I'm going to have to do a feasability study on squirrel farming.
I'd like to see a video of the round-up.
Me too, Rich. They probably hold the branding irons with tweezers,
I often visit my relatives in Vietnam and have seen first hand how they handle a live chicken. Yes, there is very few frozen meat in Vietnam.
To prepare a chicken, first you slit its throat and drain all the blood onto a big bowl. Then you prepare a hot water container and dip it in, then you pluck its feather by hands and use tools to pluck all the hard feathers that didn't come off. After that, you gut the chicken, take out everything inside and clean it with warm water. Then after that you make a final clean with warm water.
That's how you prepare a chicken and I also saw how they prepare some piggies, dogs, ducks and more.
Squirrel makes a fine meal and was common table fare in this country up thru the 1950's.
Wow, so I guess deer and buffalo aren't right for consumption either. Did you know that most--if not all--hunting licenses cover squirrel hunting?
It's actually still very common to have squirrel in many areas of the country. Honestly. City folk only think that Beef (cow), Pork (pig), Chicken, Turkey, Mutton (sheep) and maybe Bison are the only meats you can eat. Squirrel, groundhog, deer, elk, moose, squab, pheasant, chukar, rabbit, bear, pronghorn, turtle, gator, and nutria are all fair game as well... {Yes, I know I missed a few.}
I can. It would be nuts.
This story would be a lot more interesting if the fire had been started by a squirrel cooking a man.
Heck, the Newsvine comments are more interesting than the news story.
Been there, ate that. :) As a kid, I consumed basically everything we'd get on the trapline, including squirrel, rabbit, muskrat, and beaver (no jokes!).
@jimb-2097724
No, the crazy thing is that you could probably get a government grant to fund your study. "Squirrel farm" seems like a pretty good euphemism for Congress come to think of it.
Todd C
Now that we're all grow'd up, all we eat now is beaver... :-)
Todd C, I missread trapline and read trampoline instead. I could see how you could get squrriels out of the trees, but was really confused about the other critters that were more "land" based. LOL
I'm from the south and offended by your remark. If you leave the dead animal on the road for a couple of hours the heat from the pavement will cook it. No oven needed.
"you might be a red neck if...."
Oh lordy! Fill in the blank, "You might be a red neck if ____________"
____You repeat the same post one right after the other. lol
If you use your mailbox as a clothes line.
Glad I moved out of those apartments, they banned gas grills before i moved out,, when i came home there was cops in the parking lot many times
.....You might be a Redneck if you’ve been married three times and still have the same in-laws :)
CaerRaven
Seriously? You're talking politics in an article about freaking squirrels?? How idiotic is that?
HERE IS HOW.......
It was Thaddius McCotter that was quik cookin the varmint .... !!
You might be a redneck if......
One of your relatives died right after saying "hey, y'all watch this..."
Geico. Could save you 15 % or more on home insurance.
$10,00 is out of my league but I will bet $3 he is a Romney supporter
I`m pretty sure the 1% can afford a Mc chicken !
MOST... AWESOME....COMMENT of the night!! I wouldn't take that bet!!! HA!
Yeah, let's get some some POLITICS up in this b*tch!
Oh I know, because eating wild animals makes you a redneck. Get a clue, bigots. I hope you enjoy all your creature comforts up there in the North, some of us have to make do with what we have.
Yeah it had nothing to do with the fact he was trying to cook it with a propane torch. It's all about the fact it was a wild animal.
lol we live in the United States. A 7/11 on every street corner. Give me a break.
@Sgation
Yeah, I'd take the squirrel over whatever sort of mystery meat goes into the microwave crap you get at 7/11 ANY day.
Hey, I had people freak out at me at work for saying that you should skin a squirrel and not try to singe its fur off. I've had squirrel a few times, and I'm from Northern New England. They are probably far healthier than some of the stuff that I've seen in Dinty Moore cans.
Sgation,
No 7/11's in Tennessee or Kentucky. We eat squirrels, deer, wild turkey and other tasty treats all the time. Nothing nasty about them, especially compared to what one finds in most convenience stores.
HotTeaOnYourLap,
So, hows your cousin doin'......
I thought the meat in most 7/11 was squirrel, or rat at least, that's what the hot dogs look like.
Ha , yep even Geico mayhem commercials wouldn`t believe this !
Granny Clampett would have told him, "That ain't no way to fix a squirl for eatin!"
That's right! She'd never put torched squirrel on the fancy-eatin' table!
Cooking squirrels is nuts.
If he had been trying to toast the top of his creme brule with the little torch they sell in the foodie shops, all you Easties could understand it just fine, eh!
I had rabbit once when I was a kid. I spent more time spitting out buckshot then eating the meat.
I had the same with duck.
BP, That is why you hunt rabbit with a rifle.
And the pheasants my uncle used to give my mom.
That's why my hubby and I chew carefully any game we cook up--every once in a while you get one. I try hard to pull that buckshot out with tweezers when we clean game, but I occasionally miss one....
We have gray tree squirrels in the mountains near here--my hubby has eaten them before as a kid, but they're sooo cute, neither of us can bear to hunt one! Oh we would if starving, but we're not starving......There was a gray squirrel living in my mother-in-laws neighborhood (she lives in the mountains 45 minutes from our house in Bakersfield, CA) for several years--he was missing his tail, so everyone called him 'Stumpy' He finally disappeared--either died of old age, or got eaten by a coyote, we think. We miss him.....
There's plenty of stray dogs running around that would make a good meal too. Explain to me again why we can't eat dogs?
We're Americans.
there's a third world rumor that if you eat dog, other living dogs know it and growl to bite as you pass by. just a is a rumor, if you not scare. odd rumor too.
It's because they lick their nuts.
Because dogs have become part of many American's family. It just is NOT done here!
Eat what you will but the change in food supply does represent a big slip in standard of living. Hunting would be better than trying to add a menagerie to the species that already occupy the horrid factory farms. Neither are an answer to world-wide hunger. More acceptance of vegetarianism would help get a grip on that.
Eat those poor lovely plants that help supply oxygen? Save our air don't eat your vegee's
Please come to my neighborhood. I'm overrun with the little varmints. He's just doing what Mittens wants, he's not begging for handouts from the government and taking responsibility for his existence. If he gets in office, we'll all be eating squirrel.
Darwin was right . . .
Winter is coming in a couple of months. burn clothes gone. burn home apartment gone. burn warm and comfy blanket gone. brrr with extra r's for cold. Michigan winter is cold and coming.... but i guess bbq meat is better then fried chicken sommetime... ba ha ha
Maybe he had renter's insurance? I know when we were renting, that if the place had burned up (and we were somehow safe), we would have gotten ahead financially. All we owned at the time was from garage sales, and the renter's insurance would have paid 10x what we'd paid for clothes and furniture.
OMG we are coming to eating the wild life outside our house to survive in todays hard time.
Uh, yeah. We were eating wild life all the time I was growing up in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Deer, elk, antelope, moose, duck, mountain sheep. My dad's dead now, so no more hunting. No more tasty jerky meat, either. And I really miss elk roast.
nese1790.
Don't worry, there's an App for that on your IMDumb phone!
nese1790--you have a good point! In fact, when I first saw the headlines, my mind pictured a homeless man trying to survive. I know someone else on this vine said that too. A REALLY big reason I started hunting with my husband back when I met him in the year 2000), is that I figured that if ever things got so hard that I NEEDED to find my own food, I would know how. And now the USA and indeed the whole world seems to me to be on a precipice in many ways! The more independent I can become, the more chances I have to survive whatever the future holds. Also the more independent I become, the more extra I have available to help my loved ones, and the less I am dependent on people like the Red Cross (in case of natural disaster) which frees up more of their supplies for those who lost everything in whatever disaster happens. I hope that makes sense, the way I said it...:)
BTW--I'm getting a lot of good chuckles out of these posts!!!!
It's really hard to skin and properly cook a squirrel for a quick lunch. I would recommend cup o noodles and work on the squirrel over some time for a savory treat. And you always need to bake the little critter in cream of mushroom soup for the best flavor! Enjoy the next one if you find somewhere else to live!
That's exactly how I cooked rabbit that my friends got hunting. I never hunted but they liked that I liked to cook 'em. They were good as I remember(33 years ago). I can't remember if I pan fried first and finished in the soup to stew.
Both fried rabbit and rabbit stew taste good--my hubby and I have bagged a few....:)
Maybe he should have skinned the squirrel first.
Why would anyone want to eat a furry rodent?
"Why would anyone want to eat a furry rodent?"
Because after you remove the entrails and skin them-which removes the fur-they are tasty little critters-that's why.
Why would anyone want to eat a large, stinky bovine?
Because they're tasty.
After I read the story a liitle while back about the 700lb pig eating the old man, pig my be off my list.
Nah, just don't eat 700lb pigs that have eaten people.
Do ya suppose they have a secret "handshake"?
Weird. I always skin my squirrels first. I save the torch for the Squirrel Meringue Pie.
Skin it and throw some sweet baby rays bbq sauce on him...yummy
Rick = Sick.
That's just plain mean, and gross. We feed our squirrels daily, and while some prefer eating from the feeder, some of them prefer the personal service and come to the door for their treat. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill or eat these fun little furballs.
Wait till one of the little bastards run up your leg and bites clean through a couple of your fingers faster then you can holler ouch.
While some people like you may enjoy squirrels, others enjoy their yummy taste better. However, this guy was an idiot. Seriously, a propane torch? Don't you know how to skin a squirrel?
justplainkiddo--that's because they are your pets, or semi-pets. I'd never eat a pet either--or hope I'm never desperate enough to eat one.....