Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Larry Howell said that using his hands has been therapeutic for them.

Larry Howell was burned in an accident involving a commercial barbecue smoker. An avid woodcarver and Scoutmaster, he makes wooden neckerchief slips for his Scouts.

When he heard the propane ignite -- a noise he described as a rumbling "woof!" -- Larry Howell knew what had happened.

He'd made a mistake.

In that instant, Howell said, he flailed to shield his face and braced as much as he could for the fire that was coming.

"I instantly stopped breathing, which was a good thing," Howell recalled. "I didn't breathe any of the flames into my mouth and lungs.

"When the EMT showed up, that was the very first thing they checked, was for burns inside my mouth."

But the rescue crews, who arrived just minutes after the incident, were still a small eternity away. Howell was on fire. Flames clung to his clothes, his hair, his skin. He began to roll in the grass and tear at his burning shirt.

That was July 19, a Saturday.

Howell, 60, is a sales representative who since 1995 has served as the Scoutmaster for Roanoke's Boy Scout Troop 2. He sometimes supervises as many as 50 Scouts. His wife, Diana, has been a Cubmaster for six years. Two of their sons are Eagle Scouts; two more are earning the rank.

"We made a conscious decision a number of years ago in our family that we would be a Scouting family and support it 100 percent," Howell said recently.

That Saturday, he'd been cleaning the troop's primary means of fundraising, its commercial barbecue smoker.

The cooker is a corrugated metal cabinet topped with twin stainless steel stovepipes. Fueled by a firebox or by propane tanks, it's capable of preparing up to 500 pounds of meat at a time.

Alec Travers, 12, a Scout in Troop 2, said Scouts who work the cooker can earn $10 to $13 an hour to use toward Scouting endeavors, and the troop recently raised enough money to buy a camping trailer. The cooker "really made a difference," Alec said, and he called Howell's guidance a driving force for Troop 2.

"He's got a lot of knowledge about the outdoors and he's got a lot of love for Scouting," Alec said.

Troop 2 keeps the cooker behind the Grandin Road offices of Richard Varney, a Roanoke real estate appraiser and the troop's assistant Scoutmaster.

The day of the accident, Howell was working alone, repainting the firebox and using the smoker to season cookware.

He thought one of the two burners was already lit, but it was cold and the open fuel valve had filled the cooking chamber with propane. When Howell reached in to light the other burner, the gas flashed in his face.

Pam Eades was cleaning Varney's office. Her friend Tom Pruett had come along to help, and they had talked with Howell when they arrived at the office.

"He was in a great mood and we were all kind of happy," she recalled.

Moments later, however, Howell burst through the back door, severely burned and panicking. "His hair was still smoking" Pruett remembered.

"He was in so much pain, the skin was just hanging off him," Eades said. "He wanted to come in and get in the shower, but Tom wouldn't let him."

Pruett, a Marine, had experience with burn victims during the Gulf War and has fire training. He knew dousing burns such as Howell's with water could cause infection.

While Eades called 911, Pruett made Howell sit down, helped him control his breathing and tried to distract him until help arrived.

"I was afraid he was going to go into shock, and I knew if he did I couldn't treat him for that," Pruett said. "I tried to let him know ... I was going to take care of him."

Howell later learned that he had first- and second-degree burns on 40 percent of his body. But by the time the rescue squad arrived, he said, "my blood pressure was like 114 over 78. I thought that was just an incredible act of God to be that calm."

"Tom had kept me calm."

Howell was flown to the burn unit at the University of Virginia Medical Center. His legs, chest and face were burned, but the burns to his hands -- which had held the lighter and shielded his face -- were the worst, and his fingers had to be individually bandaged.

Many of Howell's burns were treated with Aquacel bandages, a dressing that applies to flat areas of skin. It hardens over wounds, allowing them to heal without maintenance.

Burns in smaller, more flexible areas had to be dressed normally and changed daily.

"They keep burns moist with Neosporin and it dries and sticks to the burn," Diana Howell said. "You have to pull it off and you have to clean it and then re-dress it."

That, Larry Howell said, was the most painful part of the ordeal.

He had two skin grafts on his legs, went through occupational therapy and spent the better part of a month in bed. He missed his troop's seasonal trip to Raven Knob Scout Reservation in North Carolina, but many of his acquaintances, including former troop members, stepped up to help.

One was Seth Foley, a student at Virginia Western Community College who received his Eagle Scout award in 2007.

Foley said Howell "taught me a lot about Scouting. Not only Scouting, but how to go about living your life the right way. He taught me to always strive above the minimum."

The Scouts in Troop 2 are also helping out by holding fundraisers to help their Scoutmaster with his expenses. A dinner they arranged earlier this month raised $350, and they're planning another one for the weekend of Sept. 6. Accounts for donations have also been set up in Howell's name at Valley Bank.

"He's looking better and feeling better, but he still can't work," Varney said.

His arms now seem blistered red, like a trucker's tan that stops at the sleeves of his T-shirt.

Howell has made a swift recovery. He's made four trips back to UVa but isn't scheduled to return there until December, when doctors will decide if his left hand has fully recovered or will require a skin graft.

"I get the impression that they think I'm actually doing better than anticipated," he said.

Revisiting the incident sometimes troubles him, he said, "just thinking about what took place, thinking 'what if' this or 'what if' that. It's haunting."

But when he finds himself dwelling on it, he said, he thinks about Austin Butterworth.

On July 8, 10-year-old Austin, of Roanoke, was critically injured when he squirted lighter fluid on a fire in an outdoor grill. He was taken to the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Cincinnati with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body. He's had three grafting procedures, including his entire back, and has daily dressing changes.

Christina Butterworth, his mother, is a friend of the Howells and said Austin is holding up "surprisingly well."

"He's come so far in the five weeks," she said.

Howell said the boy's plight resonates with him. He thinks of him during the more painful moments of his recovery.

"I just think, if my pain is this intense, how can he be able to get through it?" he said. "He's been a real stabilizing hero to me."

Howell said he believes other factors underscore his good fortune as well.

The fire could've easily ignited the propane tanks, or set fire to his truck, which was hitched to the smoker. There also happened to be someone on the scene who had the training to help him, Howell reflected.

"I think it truly was an accident, but there were some providential things that took place that probably saved my life," he said.