Woman Sets Snake on Fire, Burns Down Her House

Put this on your "don't-do" list: A Texas woman set a snake on fire in her backyard—and then watched as her house burned to the ground, Yahoo! News reports. "While cleaning up, she saw a snake, threw gasoline on the snake, lit the snake on fire," said a Bowie County sheriff's deputy. "The snake went into the brush pile, and the brush pile caught the home on fire."

The deputy described her recently purchased brick house as a loss, and said the house next door—which she also owns—was 20% damaged, reports CNN. A local fire official said such incidents aren't as rare as you might imagine: "Yes, it could happen with rabbits and big field mice," he told Yahoo. "They have been known to catch fire and then take off." Just why did this woman take such drastic measures? "She just didn't like snakes, I guess," he said. (More snake stories.)