Fire Balloon — a screen grab from a Mercedes commercial on CBS, November 4, 2012.
Using a fire balloon, sometimes called a sky lantern, can get you the death penalty in Thailand. According to reports from the local media the crackdown on the use of the devices during the annual Loy Krathong festival is intended to protect aircraft and other property from damage when citizens release the balloons in the hope that their bad luck will float away.
Below is an excerpt from a report in The Guardian:
“Releasing paper lanterns near airports can be very dangerous to the safety of aircraft and it is a criminal offence,” Police Major General Amnuay Nimmano told Reuters. “Those who violate the law will be dealt with accordingly and could face life in prison or the death penalty.”
Some airlines have cancelled flights and others have changed their schedules during the festival. Bangkok has deployed 2,000 police on to the streets and set up checkpoints, with parts of the city banning the sale of fireworks and lanterns, according to the Bangkok Post.
These incendiary devices use burning material such as rubbing alcohol or a candle to heat the air in a bag made of tissue paper or very thin plastic. The heat makes the device lighter than air causing it to rise into the sky, staying aloft for 10 minutes to 2 hours. They can be very pretty to watch especially when they are released dozens or hundreds at a time such as at a wedding or some other celebration.
The devices are known to start wildfires and structure fires. In the United States they are illegal in at least 25 states. Entire countries have banned the devices, including Austria, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Spain, Germany and parts of Canada. The National Association of State Fire Marshals adopted a resolution in 2013 urging states to ban the sale and use of the devices.
Sky lantern release in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo by Takeaway.
Chinese lanterns, sky lanterns, or fire balloons are banned in at least 12 states and 6 countries. These devices use burning material such as rubbing alcohol or a candle to heat the air in a bag made of tissue paper or very thin plastic. The heat makes the device lighter than air causing it to rise into the sky, staying aloft for 10 minutes to 2 hours. They can be very pretty to watch especially when they are released dozens or hundreds at a time such as at a wedding or some other celebration. The problem is they sometimes start fires in structures and wildland areas, and they leave litter where they eventually land.
We strongly discourage using sky lanterns because of the fire hazard.
Then they listed some helpful hints to consider if you still insist on using them in a National Park, such as, don’t use them indoors, and
Do not use sky lanterns in areas with burnable vegetation. Misuse in this manner has resulted in many wildland fires.
We checked with the NPS’ Kathy Komatz, the National Structural Fire Training Specialist who wrote the article about the use of sky lanterns. She told us that she was not able to find a Park Service-wide policy on the use of the devices. However, it is possible that individual park units could ban them and few people would know about it.
Mike Ferris a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service, explained his agency’s view:
There are no specific CFR’s [Code of Federal Regulations] that address Sky Lanterns. They would not meet the definition of a firework or other pyrotechnic device. However, they are a “fire” and several CFR’s prohibit any unpermitted or uncontrolled use of fire. It would loosely fall under the campfire definition as well. The most applicable prohibition would be 261.5(d) Leaving a fire without completely extinguishing it. Therefore, they would not be legal to use in the National Forests unless they were specifically permitted.
For the Bureau of Land Management’s take on sky lanterns, we heard from Kenneth Frederick:
I asked Jon Skinner about this (he is the BLM’s national fire mitigation and education specialist at NIFC). Jon wrote that, as far as he knows, Montana is the only state in which the BLM has banned sky lanterns on agency-managed lands. However, it is important to note that federal regulations already prohibit causing wildfires on public lands. The BLM expects land users to be careful and wise. That applies to any activity that could ignite a wildfire.
Sky lanterns have not been a serious problem (yet) for the BLM. But if their use becomes a more and more common source of wildfire ignition on BLM lands, I think the public could expect them to be banned outright on BLM lands–or at least strongly regulated.
Entire countries have banned the use of sky lanterns, including Austria, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Spain, Germany and parts of Canada. In the United State they are illegal in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
A company called Rise Lantern Festival is planning fire balloon events around the world, hoping to make money by selling tickets to the participants. They have one planned on October 18, 2014 about 20 miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada, and another for Bali, Indonesia on November 15, 2014. Their web site does not specify how the trash will be collected, or how they plan to deal with fires that may result.
It seems counter-intuitive that many national parks and forests ban open campfires, at least in certain areas or times of the year, but it’s perfectly fine in some locations to set a fire in a flimsy, sometimes home-made hot air balloon and let the wind carry it to an unknown destination, while recognizing that the use of the devices has “resulted in many wildland fires”.
At least two companies have used images of fire balloons in their television commercials, which could raise the popularity of the dangerous devices. Those irresponsible companies are Mercedes automobiles, and AndroGel, which is testosterone marketed by AbbVie.
A sky lantern may land when the flame is still alight, making it a fire hazard. In typical designs, as long as the lantern stays upright the paper will not get hot enough to ignite, but if the balloon is tilted (say, by the wind or by hitting some object), it may catch fire while still in the air. All the paper will usually burn in a few seconds, but the flame source may remain lit until it hits the ground.
Sky lanterns have also been alleged to pose a danger to aircraft.
On 1 July 2013 the ‘largest fire ever’ in the West Midlands of England, involving 100,000 tonnes of recycling material and causing an estimated six million pounds worth of damage, was started by a sky lantern which landed at a plastics recycling plant in Smethwick. Images of the lantern starting the fire were captured on CCTV. In response to the fire, Poundland decided to stop selling sky lanterns and recalled their entire stock on 6 July 2013.
The video below, at the 11-second mark, shows the sky lantern falling into the Smethwick plastics recycling plant in Smethwick, referred to above. Look at the very top of the picture.
Fire Balloon — a screen grab from a Mercedes commercial on CBS, November 4, 2012.
Fire balloons, sometimes called sky lanterns, are suspected of causing 300 vegetation fires in the Sverdlovsk oblast in Russia.
Below is an excerpt from an article in the Yekaterinburg News:
…“It is especially dangerous when a torch with open flame inside gets into the crown of a coniferous tree: rich in essential oils needles erupts like a match,” the Sverdlovsk region’s Department of Forestry in a statement, according to Oblastnaya Gazeta. “And if that happens in windy weather, the fire spread[s] with lightning speed.”
As of Feb. 27, sky lanterns have been banned in residential and urban areas situated close to forests in the Sverdlovsk region. Individuals seen using sky lanterns will be fined between $30 and $5,700, depending on whether or not a fire is caused as a result.
Currently, firefighters are working to contain a 20-acre blaze in the Sverdlovsk region’s Bilimbaevskom Sukholozhsky woodland area, according to Oblastnaya Gazeta.
These incendiary devices use burning material such as rubbing alcohol or a candle to heat the air in a bag made of tissue paper or very thin plastic. The heat makes the device lighter than air causing it to rise into the sky, staying aloft for 10 minutes to 2 hours. They can be very pretty to watch especially when they are released dozens or hundreds at a time such as at a wedding or some other celebration.
The devices are known to start wildfires and structure fires. In the United States they are illegal in at least 25 states. Entire countries have banned the devices, including Austria, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Spain, Germany and parts of Canada. The National Association of State Fire Marshals adopted a resolution in 2013 urging states to ban the sale and use of the devices.
Below is an excerpt from their position on the issue:
…Therefore, be it resolved that the National Association of State Fire Marshals strongly encourages states to ban the sale and use of sky lanterns through whichever means is most expedient for them. Banning the use of sky lanterns is important to help control homemade devices as well as those purchased from various sources.
The best case scenario for these dangerous devices is that they scatter trash around the countryside. The worst case is when they start fires that do serious damage, such as when one was suspected of destroying 15 houses in the Philippines on January 1, 2013.
A company called Rise Lantern Festival is planning fire balloon events around the world, hoping to make money by selling tickets to the participants. They have one planned on October 18, 2014 about 20 miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada, and another for Bali, Indonesia on November 15, 2014. Their web site does not specify how the trash will be collected, or how they plan to deal with fires that may result.
A fire balloon or sky lantern as seen in a testosterone commercial
Bowing to public pressure, a chain of stores has decided to stop selling fire balloons or sky lanterns. Tesco, a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, made the decision after months of lobbying by Farmers Guardian and supporters of the Say No to Sky Lanterns campaign.
…It comes as campaigners raised concerns about the risk to livestock and the threat of fire, ahead of Chinese New Year tomorrow (Friday) – an event traditionally celebrated by releasing fire lanterns into the sky.
Back in November the retailer told FG it would review its sky lantern sales following a raft of pressure from MPs, local authorities, farming unions and concerned members of the public.
Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis joined the drive after becoming fed up with the dangerous paper and wire objects littering land where his cattle graze.
Tesco agriculture director Tom Hind said: “We have listened to the feedback from customers and other groups including the farming community, and we think the right thing to do is to stop selling sky lanterns. We will not be sending any more stock to stores and any existing stock should be gone within a matter of weeks.”
These incendiary devices use burning material such as rubbing alcohol or a candle to heat the air in a bag made of tissue paper or very thin plastic. The heat makes the device lighter than air causing it to rise into the sky, staying aloft for 10 minutes to 2 hours. They can be very pretty to watch especially when they are released dozens or hundreds at a time such as at a wedding or some other celebration. One of the problems is that they sometimes start wildfires or structure fires.
A fire balloon caused a massive and very destructive structure fire in the UK Sunday night. Fire Geezer has the details, but a security camera caught the device, sometimes called a Chinese lantern or sky lantern, falling into a plastic recycling plant which then ignited causing about $10 million in damages.
Some people in the UK are outraged about these devices, and want a ban on them to prevent similar incidents and “appalling tragedy”.
These incendiary devices use burning material such as rubbing alcohol or a candle to heat the air in a bag made of tissue paper or very thin plastic. The heat makes the device lighter than air causing it to rise into the sky, staying aloft for 10 minutes to 2 hours. They can be very pretty to watch especially when they are released dozens or hundreds at a time such as at a wedding or some other celebration. The problem is they are uncontrollable and sometimes start wildfires or structure fires.
More and more areas in the United States are banning the devices, most recently the state of Oregon and Pismo Beach, California. Wildfire Today has written about these dangerous toys before.
The only time during World War II when Japanese forces bombed the American mainland occurred in 1942. They loaded a small airplane with two incendiary bombs, launched it from a submarine off the Oregon coast, and tried to set the state on fire. It did not work out too well for the Japanese. Apparently there was no wildland Fire Behavior Analyst on the submarine’s crew.
…[From his lookout tower Keith] Johnson didn’t see the submarine as it surfaced. The boat creaked as its bow broke through the waves to the surface of the Pacific Ocean. A loud bell gave the “all clear” for the men to spring into action. On board that I-25 submarine was a single engine Yokosuki E14Y aircraft. This small, two passenger float plane was compact enough to store in a submarine but had enough power in its nine cylinder 340 hp radial engine to carry bombs on light attack missions. A team of men rolled the plane out its hangar that stood next to the conning tower, unfolded its wings and tail, then loaded two 176 pound incendiary bombs underneath its wings…
[…]
But when the fog lifted [Howard] Gardner saw smoke. He called for help then set off towards the fire, which he assumed was a remnant from a lightning strike fire that had sparked the previous day. What he and his men found was a smoldering fire covering a circular area 50 to 75 feet across. They quickly got the fire under control and found a crater about three feet in diameter and about one foot deep at the centre of the site. Inside was evidence of intense heat, hot enough to fuse earth and rocks.
Here is an excerpt from The Tribune about a county in southern California prohibiting them under most conditions:
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday passed an ordinance prohibiting the ignition and launching of sky lanterns in the county areas outside the incorporated cities and fire districts. The ordinance goes into effect in 30 days.
A sky lantern — an airborne paper lantern sometimes called a “Chinese lantern” — is similar to a miniature hot air balloon. It is powered by a fuel cell or candle that heats the air, fills the balloon and makes the lantern fly up into the sky.
“What seems harmless is not, and these lanterns pose a serious threat to the citizens, property, and wildland areas of San Luis Obispo County,” said Cal Fire Chief Rob Lewin.
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UPDATE at 9:14 p.m. MT, May 8, 2013:
After posting the above about the sky lanterns, we heard from Dietra A. Myers Tremblay who is studying Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Hawaii. She said:
In regards to your May 8, 2013 Wildfire Briefing on sky lanterns, in 2012, Hawaii enacted a state law that prohibits the sale, offer for sale, distribution, possession, ignition, or other use of aerial luminaries also known as sky lanterns, Hawaii lanterns, and flying luminaries.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group has published the revision status of some of their courses. Here is a screen grab from a portion of the document (click on it to see a larger version):
Fire truck runs over firefighter dressed as a bear
The article in the North Devon Journal in the United Kingdom does not mention Smokey Bear:
A firefighter dressed as a bear was run over by a fire engine during Torrington Carnival on Saturday night.
Justin Matthews, landlord at the Cavalier Inn in Well Street, was taking part in the town’s annual carnival when the incident happened at around 7pm.
Mr Matthews, who is a retained firefighter, was walking in front of the fire engine when he got caught up in the wheel of the vehicle.
The incident happened as the carnival was making its way around the roundabout next to Torrington Cottage Hospital at the top of Calf Street.
The procession was stopped while ambulance crews treated the firefighter at the scene.
Ellen Vernon, who lives in Torrington, said there was “horror” among the crowd as everyone realised what had happened.
