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Lots of possibilities — but the most likely one is that the tech — or someone — pressed the reset button more than once and got too much oil in the fire chamber. Which finally got a spark… not the first time. And a common enough occurrence.

Proving who did what and why the burner didn't ignite reliably is going to be a real headache for all concerned.

I doubt the gasoline theory. Much more likely that someone sat there muttering "why doesn't thing run?" and stabbing the reset…

Unfortunately this is what we've become as a society, after decades of "you have to go to college or you'll end up like him" rhetoric. These white collar "educators" don't understand that the majority of blue collar workers make a better living than they do, and still look down on them with disdain. My high school experience made me feel like I would end up under an overpass if I didn't get some sort of college degree and even after a 5 year union pipefitter apprenticeship, was still meant to feel like I was somehow ruining my life by being a lowly construction worker. It still happens today, if I'm being honest. I actually took a lot of pride in my work and learning what makes things tick, so I was a foreman as a 21 year old apprentice with guys triple my age working under me who still couldn't sweat a joint or cut a thread- those same guys refusing to take orders from "the stupid kid". I was the youngest guy on site by a decade for a long time before younger guys started coming in again, and honestly I felt like the younger guys coming in were better at their job than the older guys for the most part. Maybe it was the whole "old dogs and new tricks" thing, but there were countless retirement age guys who'd been pipefitter for 40+ years and barely knew which end of a wrench to grab and that still hasn't changed. I'm 36 now and run my own business, but am still met pretty regularly with the vibe that I couldn't possibly know what I'm doing because I'm just a dumb kid. Obviously we always have more learning to do but I think a large portion of tradespeople are too arrogant, lazy, or dumb to learn anything new and that's why we're seeing this incompetence. It may not always be the technician's fault, but their employers who send out a new hire who's never even seen an oil boiler before to a job where they're required to service an oil boiler. By themselves. A few weeks ago I was installing a boiler and the plumbers from a big name company showed up, both of them under 21, to connect a 4 port gas manifold to 4 runs of CSST hanging in the room. It took 2 guys 3 hours to do a job that I could do alone in 10 minutes, but it was apparent that nobody had ever taught either of them how to do what they were sent there to do. I tried to help at one point and the arrogant punk got snotty with me so I let them do it their way.