Fire King! (8-10 September)

Fire King fun!

It had been a while since our last fire sculpture, so we planned another attempt as a finale on our last night.  Nick found a suitable log and transported it back to camp in three sections.

The afternoon was spent pleasantly, preparing our latest Fire King for firing.  Vaughan assisted by chiseling out the rotted middle of the log pieces and gathering some pine needle "hair" (for photographic impact).  At one stage our wooden monarch had a leaf tongue also.  He was lit in the early evening, when there was still plenty of natural light.  Initially he had wonderful flowing smoky hair but the flames established fairly quickly and he burnt very well for several hours (before partially collapsing over the cooking grate, which prompted detailed discussion of various fine-tuning needed for our next effort)!

When we returned home on Monday afternoon, we called into a service station for ice creams.  The attendant asked if we had been concerned about the bushfire which had closed the nearby freeway and we responded that we had been blissfully ignorant of any drama.  Back in the car, Vaughan ventured his opinion that there hadn't been a bushfire - just people confused by all our Fire King's smoke!