Jdurg is right. I've never done it before, but I have read through all of the precautions. I live in the desert, so there's plenty of wide open space without any plant life whatsoever (save a few scattered shrubs). But just real quick, I recently purchased a scale accurate to the nearest tenth of a gram and had it calibrated. I weighed out 3g of Al powder and 10g of iron rust. I stirred it for a while, and then placed 3g of KMNO3 on top of the thermite. I used glycerine to ignite it, but the only thing that burned was the KMNO3. What went wrong?