Fire Performer: Safety Guidelines

Fire performing (dancing) is a beautiful and safe art when you take responsibility for the dangers associated with it seriously.

These guidelines are geared towards all fire performers (dancers) who will be either performing or just having fun at Freezer Burn. They are not necessarily fully complete or all encompassing. This is not intended to limit your choices; rather to provide a framework of good practice.

Our Freezer Burn Fire Art Safety Team (FB-FAST) requests that you register as a fire performer/artist so that we can let you know where the designated fire spinning areas are. FB-FAST will have you sign the Fire performer agreement that explains the risks to yourself and other participants. It also ensures you are aware and have available the safety equipment required while performing with fire. Upon receiving your agreement you will be issued a Fire Performer laminate that we ask you to keep on you while performing/dancing with fire. 

If someone sees you or your safety buddy wearing a fire performer laminate while spinning, they will know you have been made aware of these guidelines and will not need to ask if you know about safety. Without one, they might come over and initiate a conversation with you just to make sure you are experienced, and understand safe spinning practices. It’s about promoting competency and care, while respecting the safety of others and the environment.

Being safe means being aware of the choices being made in the fire circle you're working within. We offer these as guidelines; not rules.  

Please consider these items while you spin at Freezer Burn; 

Freezer Burn and the League of Extraordinary Albertans hereby informs you of your individual responsibility as a fire performer to seek adequate knowledge and safety information to qualify you to spin fire. You are advised to seek appropriate educational knowledge on fire tools and safety techniques, including but not limited to safety precautions; legality of fire permits in your local jurisdiction; appropriate fuel storage, containment, and transport; safety personnel and fire equipment extinguishment; fire tool extinguishment; and all other aspects of fire safety as related to fire performing.

The Three C’s

Are you Clear? 

Do you feel mentally alert enough to be burning fire?

Things that might impact this answer are your mood, how hard a day you had, how hot it’s been, how much you've been working, your ability to focus, a fight you had with someone, an emotional event in your life, and your use of altering substances including (and perhaps especially) alcohol.

Are you Capable? 

Do you feel physically capable of doing the dancing you're attempting to do? 

It’s a burn, you’re going all out. Things that impact you include how much playing you have done, how many times you have already burned, the recent use of altering substances, and how tired you are. BEWARE of the adrenaline rush! It can deceive you both on a mental and physical level.

Are you Competent? 

Are you doing moves that you are trained and have practiced without fire? 

At some point in time, each move will have its "first" time with fire and no matter how much you practice without fire, it isn't necessarily the same feeling with the fire there. Do this in practice, before the big show.

Dress for the Occasion

Ideally, you'll be fire dancing in natural or fire resistant fibers. Cotton, denim, leather, suede and Nomex work really well. Check the safety of your fabric. If the clothing melts, as synthetics will do, it is not a safe fabric. If you touch the flames of your tool against it, the fabric may burn and melt onto your skin. This is more dangerous (and more painful!) than the flame hitting naked skin!

In addition to wearing natural fibers on your body, consider covering your hair. Even if your hair is short - and especially if it is long - hair is quick to light up and seemingly evaporates before your eyes. For long hair, braiding helps keep it under the cap/safety material you affix to your head.

Be sure to also check your costume for dangers like:

• Loose strings that can get caught in your prop 
• Jewelry can hurt (necklaces while hooping) or get caught on your prop or clothing. 
• Loose fabric and scarves that might wrap around your prop in any way. 
• Unfinished cotton edges are also prone to lighting on fire.
• A weave that is made of the right fibers can still be a loose enough weave to hold fuel so that it acts like a wick. In general, tight weaves are safer than loose weaves.

Check & Check Again

Check Your Prop

Faulty gear can be problematic - for the performer, the audience, the fire safety person and the environment. Even if you check your rig at the beginning of your session, you may still end up with things coming loose or parts failing after a few burns. A part can fail at any time, so not only should you check your prop at the beginning of a set of burns, you should also continue to monitor your prop before each and every burn regardless of the type of equipment you spin.

Check your spaces

You should be familiar with anything that may be a problem in the 3 areas; fueling, spin off, and lighting and performing areas. Your safety person should also be aware of any concerns. 

Check your audience

Do you have good clearances between you and the audience? In areas without a perimeter, crowds will tend to move closer to get a good view. Also, be aware of the state of your audience, especially those people who might be altered.

Fire Buddies

Have a clear, capable and competent fire safety person supporting your burn. Things can and do go wrong very quickly. You want your fire safety person to be educated about how to handle things while they stay calm in the crisis. All the while, they need to be able to communicate effectively with you and the crowd, if necessary. Your fire safety person should be responsible for the following:

• Performance area 
• Checking the performance area with you. 
• Fire Extinguisher 
• Your safety person should know where the fire extinguisher is located (and it should be close enough to them that they can reach it in the unlikely event that they need it) as well as knowing how to operate it.
• Checking you and themselves to ensure the 3 C's. It is equally important for the safety person. They have to be alert and ready to help if need be.
• Fire Blanket
• Your fire safety personnel should be holding a wet towel or fire retardant material for use in case of emergency. It is a good idea to keep extra safety cloth in your fire safety kit, especially if you use tools with more wicks like fans, hoops and double staves. If you spin in groups, you may want to label your fire blanket by putting a small piece of gaffer or masking tape on it with your name in permanent ink on the tape.

Holding the space

Holding space is different in different performance and practice areas. If you are performing, the more challenging problem is the crowd. Mostly, people are just plain silly about fire performances and seem to think that because you're in control of the fire, they can't get hurt. More than once we've been in a situation where a drunk or altered person stumbled through the crowd right across our dance space. In tight performance spaces, it is helpful for the safety person to enlist the help of others in the crowd to help keep the space safe. It really does help!

Leadership

Your lead safety person should be comfortable giving orders and telling people what to do because this is what they will need to do if an emergency arises. This means being comfortable with telling people to get out of the way and the ability to project their voice in a way that is louder than the music, crowd and any other noise going on in the area where the performance is happening.

Liaison with the crowd/ranger personnel

When performing in any sort of semi-public situation, your safety person will need to have excellent interpersonal communication skills such that they can communicate with the crowd to make requests and corral them as needed. 

Fire Extinguishment

While it is critical to have a fire safety person present to ensure your safety, it is useless to have someone there who doesn’t actually know how to handle the fire. We have all too often seen safety personnel who have no experience with actually extinguishing the fire. Be sure your safety person has extinguished the fire at least a few times and knows what might happen when they pat the fire blanket rather than smother as well as understanding how hot the metal on the tools are. Also explain the possibility of re-ignition of flame when lifting the blanket so they know that the tool can sometimes relight.

Help with extinguishing during out of control situations

The dangers with staff, double staff, fan and hoop are somewhat less problematic as you can just drop it if you have trouble while spinning. Other tools, like rope dart, double meteor and poi are a bit more challenging as these tools can actually wrap around your body in a dangerous manner. If you do have a moment where your prop wraps around you in an unusual way and you can't get it off you (such as “butterfly handcuffs”), your fabrics do "catch" on fire or the ground around you catches on fire, your fire safety person would extinguish these flames. 

Extinguishing your prop at your request

At any point in time you can choose to end your practice or performance. If you want to extinguish your prop before it burns out, communicate this to your safety person. They can then lay down the fire safety towel for you to place your prop on top of. They will then cover the prop with the other side of the towel and you can smother the flames and if need be, you can step on the towel to assist in the smothering process. Be sure the safety person compresses and holds the safety blanket on top of the prop rather than patting it. Patting the blanket sometimes acts more like a bellows and stokes the fire rather than extinguishing it.

Support your performance

It is especially pleasant when your safety person hoots and hollers on your behalf during the performance. More importantly though is letting you know you're not on fire when the prop does brush against you by yelling, "You're okay!" or something to that effect. 

Communicating danger to the performer

The fire safety person should be calling out information such as people getting in the performance path, and more important information such as, "pant leg on fire!" if your clothes should catch on fire.

Safe Spaces

Whether you're practicing and performing, work within three designated spaces. Also include a place outside of the performance area to keep your personal stuff that is away from the fuel and performance area and is monitored to prevent theft or accidental damage to your belongings. 

Your safety check before you burn includes checking the three performance spaces;

• The fueling area is the first. That space is where you have your fuel, dipping bucket, and other supplies not in use. This is where you will soak your wicks with fuel. This space should be well away from any open flames and should be guarded against potential dangers including cigarette smoking and butt disposal. NEVER use a lighter as a light source in the dipping area!
• The spin off area is the second. In this space you will spin your tool to rid it of any excess fuel.This avoids spraying fuel and flames onto the crowd and yourself. An environmental choice is to spin off your tools into ziplock bags or small empty paint cans and recycle the fuel into the dipping bucket. This is easy and works well with all types of tools. It also reduces fuel consumption. NEVER use a lighter in the spin off area!
• The performance space is your third area. Be aware of your space! Are there potential hazards in the space? Before beginning your practice or performance be sure to look:
• Below. Is the ground level? Are there obstacles on the ground? Is there debris? Slippery spots? Fuel spills? Is there dry brush that might light on fire?
• Around. Can your fire safety person get to you quickly? Are you in a high traffic area? Is the audience crowding you? Do you have enough space to safely perform? Is there enough space for you to do all the tricks you planned to do? Can the crowd disperse easily if necessary? Is there enough space if you drop your prop and it rolls away from you?
• Above. Are there branches that might light up? Are there hanging items that might catch on fire or melt before your eyes? Are there wires above you that might catch on your tool?

As you step into this space have your safety person light your prop or light off a prelit flame source. 

DIP AND FLICK YOUR WICKS IN AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE AREA

Freezer Burn takes place on an organic farm. There is a possibility that animals will be grazing in the area that you will be spinning. Try to minimize your wick run off, and ideally, catch all excess fuel before spinning off.