Sorry to bump this ancient thread, but the concern over propane seems badly overstated to me. I built a propane flamethrower a while ago and while it certianly burns, it does NOT burn like some people seem to think. In fact my device was ineffective, I badly overestimated how well propane burns.
Basically even under pressure an explosion of a modest amount of propane is pretty harmless. I had a 1.5gal tank of propane that I didn't check was empty when i put the torch to it. It blasted up in my face, and while it was unpleasant, it was not very harmful; I wasn't hurt and learned to ALWAYS double check fuel lines are empty first.
This was with a very large amount of propane compared to what most people here would likely be using. Its pretty hard for me to imagine a serious accident happening with propane. Its just not that easy to burn in the amounts we're talking amount, and if it did escape it would dissipate harmlessly into the air at 10x the amounts we're interested in.
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