Some friends of mine did this, and then poured the hot metal into an old ant hill (it was empty, flooding had killed the queen) to make one of the cool sculptures, except they didn't wet the grass around it before they did it, so they set their backyard on fire.

Yes, alcohol was involved, so we weren't the brightest, but we didn't burn any houses down. The only sacrifice was the grass in about a 10ft circle and one of the guy's leg hair.