Surprisingly, there are some benefits to having someone burn down your deck.  The main one is that you don't have to fix it yourself if you have insurance. We lost a good chunk of our deck to a fire a few weeks back and now there is a construction crew rebuilding it.  Not only are they repairing the fire damage, they are also finishing the stairs, which I was unable to do last summer.  It's going to save me a couple of weekends and keep my stress level low.