By JOHN BURNETT Tribune-Herald staff writer ADVERTISING When Fourth of July rolls around, celebrants will still be able to pop firecrackers, but there will be no more sending sky lanterns aloft. Revisions to the county’s Fire Code approved last month
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
When Fourth of July rolls around, celebrants will still be able to pop firecrackers, but there will be no more sending sky lanterns aloft.
Revisions to the county’s Fire Code approved last month by the County Council have outlawed what the Fire Department calls “aerial luminary devices.”
The flying lanterns are about 3 feet tall when unfolded and act as miniature hot air balloons. When the small, solid fuel source is lit at the bottom of the lantern, the hot air causes the lantern to lift into the air and fly as high as 1,000 feet until the fuel source is depleted. Then, it drops to the ground.
Retired Fire Chief Darryl Oliveira started a program in late 2010 to buy out the flying novelty regarded as a fire hazard, but now it is illegal to “buy, sell, use, possess, ignite, or cause to ignite any such aerial luminary device” which is defined as “any homemade or manufactured device that has an open flame and which can be sent airborne or adrift, leaving the height and distance it travels to be determined by existing atmospheric conditions.”
“The language is in the code due to the potential for brush fires,” Fire Battalion Chief Gantry Andrade said Wednesday. “If you look at the specific lanterns and the packaging they come in, every one that I’ve seen has specific instructions on where to use it and how to use it. If you read that, basically, you shouldn’t be able to use it in Hawaii, anyway, because you need windless weather. You cannot use it around tall trees, buildings (and) within five miles of an airport. … If you followed the directions on the packaging, you wouldn’t be able to use it here anyway.”
Andrade acknowledged that the code, as written, would also outlaw commercial and recreational hot air ballooning on the Big Island.
“In that case, should someone come across and ask, I would ask the chief (Darren Rosario) to give an exemption for that, specifically,” he said. “Of course, we would need to know their flight pattern, where they’re gonna go, where they’re setting off from and when, and stuff like that.”
A bill in the House that would ban the aerial lanterns statewide has passed its first of two required readings by the full chamber and is scheduled for a 9 a.m. hearing today by the Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs at the state capitol in Honolulu.
Also part of the new revised Fire Code is language that puts it in line with guidelines recently adopted by the state’s Clean Air Branch.
Outdoor burning of rubbish and green waste has been banned since a 2008 proclamation by then-Mayor Harry Kim.
“We’ve had a brush fire as (recently) as two weeks ago in (Hawaiian) Paradise Park due to backyard burning,” said Fire Inspector Kazuo Todd. “… It didn’t destroy any property; it was just a brush fire. But it potentially could have gotten worse.”
The new state guidelines also prohibit using an open flame to heat water for residential bathing — “furo,” as it’s known locally.
Still permitted is outdoor cooking, such as on a grill or hibachi, and smokehouses, which are popular, especially with local hunters, to process and preserve meat. Todd advises, however, that those whose cooking causes smoke to drift in residential areas should call Fire Dispatch at 961-8336 so callers who complain about the smoke can be apprised of the situation.
“We will not stop people from cooking,” he said. “There’s obviously a lot of heritage here for people cooking with imus and other stuff. We don’t really want to affect people’s quality of life, so we’re not going to regulate that.”
Email John Burnett at
jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
