IT was a beautiful fall day on Ochlockonee Bay (Oak-lock-oh-knee)...there, I thought that would help. Sparkling water & cool blue skies were a welcome respite after a horrendously hot summer south of Tallahassee, FL. Anyway, I was letting my O'23 float free (sails stowed) in our large & beautiful bay here and was in the process of installing an autopilot. The battery compartment on the O'23 is in the port storage compartment next to the helm. Since I owned my boat, I was also using that area to occasionally store extra fuel...bad idea. At the time, this compartment contained a full spare 2 1/2 gallon plastic fuel can directly under the wires I was installing for the autopilot...another bad idea! As we all know, Florida is the home of the dumb voters so maybe it's also the home of one dumb sailor! You guessed it...when I made the final (wrong) connection to the autopilot from the battery, the wires started burning fiercely! Flames, probably no bigger that 12 inches but looking like a major forest fire from my point of view, were raging just an inch or two above the spare fuel tank! I had two options, jump overboard or reach in & grab the fuel tank! Being from the dumb voter state, I elected, after one second of thought process, to reach in & grab the tank! Suffice to say, I was successful & only burned all the hair off my arm in the process. I was lucky...very lucky. It was a new fuel tank & was completely sealed tight & that's what saved me! For all of you sailors out there in whatever type of boat you operate...NEVER...store fuel around electrics or anything else that could become flammable!