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August 17, 2013: 15185 sky lanterns
http://cellar.org/2013/skylanterns.jpg
From Boston.com's gallery of record-setters, Quote:
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What an incredibly beautiful fire hazard.
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Those are so cool! I got a pack of those for Christmas last year, but am afraid to try them out. From here, the winds would carry them towards downtown and into DCA flight paths.
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er the Philippines.
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In theory, they float through the sky until the flame burns out, and then they cool off and drop to the ground.
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In reality they are released irresponsibly and cause huge fires.
BBC website |
It's a trick they learned from the Japanese years ago.
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As a kid I filled up about 50 balloons with He, tied them to a road flare and..... it dropped like a rock at my feet. (This is where I learned how little lift Helium actually provides.) Back to the story: So I cut off an inch of the flare. Still dropped like a rock.. I continued until the flare was only about an inch long... At an inch it floated very gradually upward.
So I lit it and let it go. Now that's when I learned that burning road flares that aren't laying..on a ROAD, actually drip long streamers of burning sulfur. This I discovered as the whole contraption floated out of all reach and out across blocks of homes. I've never felt such helplessness and despair as I watched the drooling purple fire raining down across the houses and yards and I could do nothing about it. I still remember some guy who loomed up out of the dark just as I launched it. He said. "Brilliant, just f***king brilliant." Luckily no houses burned and no one died. Needless to say a bunch of idiot house burning candles in paper sacks just about make me ill at the thought. |
That was a brilliant post Spuck. I read it out loud to Pete.
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Who's Pete? |
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A US fire marshall would probably feel justified in going to that 'event' with a an Uzi. |
Pete is Griff's lovely lady.
Despite the name, they are an officially sanctioned union. |
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