Some questions on fire breathing

Of course Fire Breathers will post all the bad stuff and tell everyone it is horrible for them because we want to keep the numbers down and keep up the illusion that it is extremely dangerous. However, I am rather tired of the stigma it carries among others in the fire community. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough good info on Fire Breathing on the web for people to get an unbiased view.

Yeah, I've met a couple of fire-twirlers who performed. Upon being asked if it was dangerous after a performance, one of them said: "Incredibly", which just kinda made his performance retrospectively even cooler. But after taking it up myself... so long as you're not an idiot, the worst you'll get is the occasional second degree burn, and even those probably can be prevented (I know all the bad burns I've gotten were from doing recoil-wraps with fire poi without the necessary protection. It hurt, but it was worth it for the crowd response.). Thanks for clearing things up, I'll definitely look deeper into it than what some people say.

"This is the kind of irrelevant nonsense..."

Its not irrelevant nonsense though... Just like precautions can be taken to make fire spinning and juggling less risky, you can do the same for Fire Breathing. The ultimate risks for any fire art are the same - serious injury or death. Every person has the ability to make a fatal mistake no matter how old or young you are, which fire art you do, or how long you have been doing it. It might be a bit easier to make a fatal mistake by breathing fire... However, proper training can greatly reduce that risk.

"We have multiple actual examples of fire-breathes going wrong that end up with months long hospital stays..."

Ok... So we have like maybe 10 high profile cases of serious Fire Breathing injuries that we hear about out of the thousands of people who breathe fire?? Doesn't sound like the odds are too bad.

I personally know more people who have gotten serious burns to the point of hospitalization from spinning poi than people who have been hospitalized from breathing... Really, I only know 1 person who was hospitalized from breathing and it was the first (and last) time he ever breathed.

As I already said in my previous post "The ultimate risks for any fire art are the same - serious injury or death."

You know, you can also get chemical pneumonia and probably ARDS if you inhale enough fumes and smoke from your burning poi as well.

By no means am I downplaying the risks... I am just trying to be fair and lighten the rather large bias against Fire Breathing which is quite present in the HoP community. For christ's sake, I cant even type the word > Fire Breathing < without also including a link to Pele's horror story... And god forbid I try to include Fire Breathing in my CoL entry... And don't forget the few threads I started trying to discuss Fire Breathing techniques which quickly got closed and deleted because they encouraged dangerous activities.

Pfft. I love HoP - but that's a bit overboard IMO.

FYI-
one thing I learned on another site discussing lamp oil is that you really want to make sure the "ultra-pure" oil you are using comes from Lamplight Farms (Lamplight/Tiki brands), as the linked pdf file provided by MikeIcon shows.

Apparently other makers of lamp oil put the ultra pure label on there as a marketing gimmick and the contents can....vary.

Very true...

Every brand will be a bit different and some are worse for you than others. Always get a copy of the MSDS for the brand of fuel you use to ensure it is safe.

Id rather relate it to driving a car. It is very easy (relatively) to get seriously injured or killed while driving a car. At any point you could swerve a little off course and hit an oncoming car or tree and fly through your windshield, yet, millions of people get in their cars and risk death daily. Driving accidents happen quite frequently of varying severity but this doesn't seem to phase people. Being seriously injured or killed by Fire Breathing also takes a rather big mistake (although, still quite easy to do) to happen and as I mentioned before, I have never heard of anyone who has actually died as a result of Fire Breathing. Pele's case is the worst I've heard and that's pretty good out of the thousands of people who have been breathing fire in recent history.

The point about using ultra-pure lamp oil, if it lacks the extremely toxic and cancer-causing chemicals in paraffin and other fuels, is obviously a good one.

As previously discussed, there are two sources of damage with fire-breathing-

1. accidents involving aspirated fuel getting into the lung
2. long-term chemical poison issues (including cancer and pleurosy)

Fuel without toxic chemicals added, will obviously be safer in terms of 2.

However, it's important to point out that, till now, the majority of those trying fire-breathing, weren't using ultra-pure fuels and, for the forseeable future, access to such fuel, for most, is not going to be straightforward.

Also, of course, ultra-pure fuel isn't going to help much with type 1 accidents.

I stand by my point that comparing fire-poi spinning to fire-breathing, in terms of danger, is nonsense.

If you seriously know so many fire-poi spinners hospitalised due to poi spinning, then they are clearly doing something very wrong and, they should, IMO, do something about it, because there is no need to be going to hospital with poi-spinning, as long as it's done sensibly.

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Pele's case is the worst I've heard and that's pretty good out of the thousands of people who have been breathing fire in recent history

Pele's case, though obviously very serious, is certainly not the worst I've known from fire-breathing- a friend of mine (in real-life, not the internet) spent a similarly long time in hospital, at times coming close to death, due to a fire-breathing accident.

One reason HOP has its stance on fire-breathing (eg the automated links previously mentioned and its safety articles) is cos a fair few of the regulars have personal expience of friends badly hurt through fire-breathing.

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I am interested in what you're saying about the ultra-pure lamp oil- in no way does it make fire-breathing 'safe', but, from what you're saying, it certainly seems like it could make it 'safer' and, IMO, anything that makes fire-breathing safer, is most valuable.

Can you give some indication of how this fuel can be obtained and, an idea of its cost relative to standard parafin?

Is it something that the aspiring newbie in the UK could, realistically speaking, have access to?

I really don't know anything about fuels in the UK.

In the US, Lamplight Farms brand ultra-pure lamp oil is sold in many places such as hardware stores or craft stores. It is widely known to be sold in pretty much all Wal-Mart stores across the country. You can find it in the candle aisle. I forget what size the bottle is, but I know when I buy from Wal-Mart, its a smaller bottle, not a gallon. Price of ultra-pure vs regular for this small bottle is about a dollar more.

For more info, visit their site: http://www.lamplightfarms.com/

Just a thought... I wonder if they could engineer a similar fuel but with less harmful effects if inhaled...