yup. no telling what kind of chemicals were in the drum.... B4 we built an incinerator pit in my back yard. I cut the tops out of the barrals with a stick welder. always filled them up 1/2 way with water b4 doing it.. most of the chemicals that were in the barrals were not flamable anyway ( my dad knew what they held as he got them from the company he worked for at the time ) and for them to meet the waste requirements so they could even sit outside, they needed to be washed out anyway.