I actually have done this except I used gasoline instead of kerosene, it made a very large boom I was 14 and stupid.
Gasoline works too but since it's the vapor that lights, it can be a lot more dangerous to the operator. Kerosene is an oil, so it stays (more or less) where you put it.
If you can do it right, kerosene will boil-explode and make a lovely mushroom cloud.
If this is true, I'm kind of curious to try it. I'd have to find someplace out in the country though I doubt I'd get away with it in the city.
The only way I was able to get that to work somewhat reliably was to have the kerosene in a vessel and heat the crap out of it - a coal or pitch fire. Once the vessel broke the kerosene was at a hot enough temperature that it just kind of vaporized out the neck while destroying the vessel. Good thick glass will do it. Sometimes. Mostly you just get a poof and hot fire for a minute.
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