Too easy to do something like this

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-killed-oil-drum-explodes-051644119.html

Vapours are killers.

If Im honest not sure it would have occurred to me either

I think the drum must have contained something more volatile than oil.

Oil is a petroleum product. Warm it up and it becomes just as explosive as petrol.
A timely reminder to work and play safe folks.

This once happened where i worked at the time, luckily my workmate didn't get a scratch.
He was attacking a drum with a gas axe to make a barbie, but forgot to unscrew the bung, i was working about 70ft away, heard a massive Boom and the full drum lid fly overhead like a saucer, it had blown out of the end of the drum
Expected the worse, but found him on his back with the cutting torch still in his hands, bent at 90 degrees to the handle.
Lucky lucky man.

We cut the top from these oil drums at work to fill them with the workshop scrap. We find it faster, easier & above all safer to use a hammer & chisel to cut round the inside edge of the top lip.

Just go out and buy a BBQ FFS

Been thinking about making one of them for a while, but always figured my first step would be fill the thing with water for a few weeks to clear the vapours etc.