A little diesel in a pan in the middle of the yard, away from anything that can burn is fairly safe. Don't use gas. Be ready for your neighbors to call the fire department, diesel in a pan makes a lot of black smoke.
I did a little firefighting training myself. We used propane instead of diesel, California doesn't like the smoke. The cool thing is, as the propane expands as it comes out of the pipe, it gets cold. Propane is soluable in water, so it mixes with the water from our hoses and the cooling freezes the water. There were a bunch of burning ice cubes on the ground during the training.
For this particular exercise, we had to walk up on to the platform whose handrail is visible on the lower right edge of the fire and shut a valve.