Need for a New Fire Recipe
Brewster...@aol.com
Head Verger
St. John's Episcopal Church
Boulder, CO 80302
stjohnsboulder.org
303-449-0467
brewster...@aol.com
Dick Johnson
Here is some basic information
Isopropyl Alcohol-based Fires for Rituals
Dick Johnson, Head Verger, Trinity Episcopal Church, The Woodlands, TX
Alcohol plus Colorant fires are used by many Episcopal Churches. They are easier to assemble, safer, and easier to extinguish than are wood kindling fires. The following information is taken from several web sites plus experimentation at Trinity Woodlands.
Safety
o Do not light with short match or small lighter. The fire does not flare, but it is initially very hard to see
o Do not poor more alcohol into a lit bowl. The fire will almost instantly crawl up the liquid being poured
o When salt is exposed to the air as the fire burns up the alcohol, it will pop. Small pieces may shoot out of the container. While some prefer rock salt, it is much more prone to shoot out than regular salt.
o Putting out the fire
- You can put it out with water. The alcohol will initially float, but the fire will then go out
- You can smother it with a wet towel or a lid of some kind. We use a lid to extinguish our fire
Setup
o Medium metal or stone bowl (6” – 8” diameter is fine), colorant and Isopropyl Alcohol (rubbing alcohol). The alcohol should be high concentration – 90% best, 70% OK, 40% no – to cut down on water absorption by salts
o If on a table, put a pad below the bowl to keep from scorching the table
o If inside a room, have plenty of ventilation and move away from a fire alarm smoke or heat detector
Color Additives (colorants)
Mix the colorant and alcohol. Some of the colorant will not dissolve and will form a bottom layer in the container. Do not mix colorants together. The resulting mixture usually just produces a yellow flame
o Table Salt and Rock Salt produce a yellow flame
o Epson Salt produces a light yellow or even white flame. It makes the flames more even and less wild
o Boric acid, instead of a salt, will give a much more pronounced effect, turning much of the fire bright green
For salts, mix together at a 1:1 ratio (equal amounts of salt and alcohol). You can use the mix immediately or later.
For boric acid, mix 1:1, then add more boric acid until it forms a thin paste. Mix well and let stand for a while.
Mixes using one cup of rubbing alcohol should burn about 10 minutes and, with the colorant, produce a flame between 9 inches and 2 ft high, depending on the colorant and the bowl opening. A higher alcohol concentration gives a hotter flame and more ash, but also more flame action.
At Trinity Woodlands, we use a 90% concentration alcohol and sodium chloride (table salt or rock salt). The New Fire of the Easter Vigil is not extinguished until after the Exsultet is chanted.
Flame Colorants in Rubbing Alcohol
Color | Chemical |
Faint Pale Blue | Rubbing Alcohol by itself, almost invisible flame |
Carmine | Lithium Chloride or any soluble lithium salt |
Red | Strontium Chloride (bulk powder, health store) ---Avoid metal containers |
Orange | Calcium Chloride (a bleaching powder) |
Yellow Slightly darker yellow, a little more flame action | Sodium Carbonate Sodium Chloride (common table salt, rock salt) |
Yellowish Green Darker Green | Boric Acid Copper Sulfate |
Blue | Copper Chloride or Calcium Chloride (Bleach Powder) |
Violet | 3 parts Potassium Sulfate, 1 part Potassium Nitrate (saltpeter) |
Purple | Pure Potassium Chloride (concentration of Potassium Chloride table salt is only 14%, not enough to give a purple color) |
Light Yellow to White, more even fire | Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salts) |
Dick Johnson
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Eileen Brightwell
With all the talk about "New Fire" for Easter vigil, I just had to try it. We have a fairly new priest and he has not established many customs, he was willing to try something new but insisted the "new fire" must come into the church from "outside".
We had an unused candle holder for a "pavement light", this was set up just outside the "great doors" with a can of "Sterno" (jelled alcohol) camping fuel (also used in chafing dishes) as a fuel. I added a few large crystals of rock salt to give the flame color. I ignited the fuel with Magnesium fire starter from "Walmart" also sold under the "Coghlan" brand name, it is a modern equlivent of flint and steel.
We had a fine little fire that lit easily and did not atract the local fire department. The can of sterno would burn about 20 minutes if left unattended and could be used indoors. There is only a slight odor and some small sparks from the salt. The sterno is easily extinguished by placing the lid back on the can. I would try it out for yourself before the service to get a feel for the fire starter.
Best of luck,
Tom Dahlstrom, Verger
St. Augustine's Church
Tempe, AZ
I might have been a bit more on task with the procession. We processed from that spot on the churchyard pavement so the thurifer and cantor were inside so that we heard "The light of Christ..." from the nave while everyone else was still outside. We called back, "Thanks be to God" and quickly followed. By time she was at the altar and ready to continue chanting the service, we were all in the building. Considering the mad rush of Peter and the beloved on Easter morn, I think we did ok.
Thanks to everyone for their advice and help.
My prayers are with you Mike.
John Mark Hunter
We changed our New Fire this year. In the past, one of the elder
parishoners traditionally lit some wood kindling inside a #10 can
with a fireplace lighter in the small courtyard outside the church
doors, while the congregation stood around. This year, at the
direction of our Rector, he was experimenting with alcohol-based fire
starter in a cup with a corregated cardboard 'wick' for starting in
the Narthex. I suspect the Rector was expecting a much larger
attendance this year with a four-church ecumenical service than would
fit in the courtyard. I called Bob to share the comments from this
list about salt and alcohol. After we discussed it, he offered to let
me take over the annual duty, since he and his wife are getting on in
years and would rather not stay up late any more. This also worked
out, as I was the Verger for this service (our first time with a
Verger).
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I went with the salt-and-alcohol method in a small, rustic
cereal-sized ceramic bowl. I bought on of the Coghlan magnesium
firestarters as well. I soaked a cotton ball in alcohol, re-fluffed
it, and placed it in the middle of the bowl on top of the table salt,
with the alcohol barely topping the surface. I shaved the magnesium
onto a piece of paper, then tapped/poured it onto the cotton ball. I
consistently got ignition around 2-4 strikes, first using a knife
blade, then switching to a small file. I had read that a hacksaw
blade with it's many small teeth worked better than a knife blade and
the file works better much the same way. The only problem is that the
bright, hot flaring from the magnesium incinerates the cotton and
fine, light gray ash blows up and then floats down around a six-foot
area. I experimented and found that I could ingite the alcohol vapors
directly with the sparks from the firestarter, without any
intermediate tinder or magnesium. Every night for the four or five
nights before Easter Vigil, I would practice two or three times,
getting ignition on the first to third try. I'd put out the fire with
a metal plate of about the right size. The only problem was that after
burning for five minutes or so, the rim of the bowl became too hot to
touch, so I put it in a larger bowl to be able to remove.
On the day, I cleaned the bowl and used rock salt (available at the
church, but not at my home) and tested it a few times. Later that
day, I found a similar sized hand-thrown casserole pot with a
matching lid at the Goodwill. I switched to that (it was also about
50% larger in volume, but not footprint) since it had the nice lid
(and practiced a few times to make sure nothing threw it off).
That evening, the fire pot sat on a tall plant stand covered in a
pleasant, but potentially disposable, linen napkin, in the middle of
the narthex. The firestarter and file stayed in my pocket (both for
security and esthetics) as well as a Bic lighter and a box of matches
for backup. The altar party stood around the doors of the narthex
while myself, the celebrant, and the candlebearer gathered around the
firepot. At this point, the thurifer was staged outside the door, the
nave and chancel lights were deeply dimmed, but the narthex lights
were still moderately up. The celebrant had intended to read one
passage before I lit the fire (with the congregation standing and
turned around in their pews) and she read the prayer, but as soon as
she instructed that the narthex lights be dimmed out, she realized she
couldn't read. I, on the other hand, had repeatedly practiced lighting
the fire in complete darkness. Except this time, it took me about
seven or eight attempts to get the alcohol lit. I was about to resort
to the lighter when it caught. The bowl, about five inches across and
two-and-a-half inches deep, gave up a nice, bright yellow flame eight
to twelve inches high. The celebrant read off her prayer as I lit a
eight inch lenghth of taper and handed it to her, with which she lit
the Paschal candle. We brought in the thurifer, the candlebearer
started off followed by the thurifer and myself, and the Vigil
continued. An usher waited until we were down the aisle, covered it,
and moved the entire table/stand outside and out of the way.
In hindsight on my practices and the higher number of tries it took
to light the fire at the Vigil, I suspect the bowl and alcohol cooled
below room temperature by the evening and with the open doors eight
feet away (we live in southern Oregon up on a mountain slope around
2000'). Next year, I plan on having the firepot outside initially,
light it with a lighter, let it burn for a few minutes to warm it up,
then extinguish it before taking it inside for the real lighting.
James
Trinity Episcopal Church, Ashland, Oregon
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