Sky lantern causes large fire in South Korea

[soryang]

Wind lantern*, mainly used at events to write your wish and float into the sky. ( Source Channel A News Top Ten 10.9 )

This has been a major news item the last couple of days in South Korea, as a long held practice of sending sky lanterns or wish lanterns aloft on special occasions has inadvertently resulted in a conflagration at a major petroleum tank farm in Goyang, South Korea, a city outside of Seoul. The incident has its inception according to investigators as about 80 of the Chinese lanterns were lit and sent aloft from a grade school event at 8pm on October 6. Two of the lanterns landed about 800 meters downwind of the school, at a construction site. The next morning about ten am, a foreign worker at the construction site, found one of the lanterns, relit it, letting it go aloft aloft again, The lantern floated about 300 meters and then descended on the tank farm grounds, which were covered by a dry lawn outside the tank structures. The grass was ignited, and during a period of eighteen minutes the fire on the lawn spread toward one of the tanks and rose up the adjacent revetment surrounding the tank where it ignited the fuel vapors escaping from a small vent. The tank exploded in a fireball visible from far away, and generated flames and a column of smoke visible for miles.

* 孔明燈, 孔明灯, kǒngmíng dēng, (Chinese) Kongming lantern 風燈 풍등 poong deung (Korean) Chinese lantern, also sky lantern or literally, wind lantern. See Wikipedia for an interesting write up on the history and custom of the sky lantern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern

more

https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2018/10/chinese-lantern-causes-huge-fire-at.html

Note- the use sky lanterns is banned or regulated in many jurisdictions because of safety and environmental hazards.

[procon]

1. I see those in korean drama shows and they look very spectacular and romantic,

But I always wondered about all those flaming bags landing and starting fires.

[soryang]

2. Right, the news program said last July a permit was required to use them

I saw them being launched over the Han River in dramas, and wondered the same thing.

[Liberty Belle]

3. My reporting got these banned in California.

I couldn't believe it when a reader told me they were being sold at Wal-Mart in our fire prone area. I asked a local fire chief, who sent it up the supply chain and next thing I knew they'd been outlawed statewide. As they should be.

[soryang]

4. Good

I feel the same way about these as I do about fireworks. In the case of fireworks the fire hazard is compounded by the personal injury hazard. I went to the beach one july 4, and had to dodge bottle rockets. While I complained to a passerby, he informed me, he was legally blind in one eye having been hit with one a few years earlier.

[Liberty Belle]

7. Wow. Glad those are illegal in our county,

though some idiots still shoot off illegal fireworks even in our dry, brushy backcountry.

[pansypoo53219]

5. as stupid as bottle rockets.

[soryang]

6. The foreign worker who sent the lantern on the final fiery flight was released from custody

He was released from custody on charges of starting a fire by gross negligence because of insufficient evidence to support the warrant.

Channel A News original title for this story was "The lantern's fault- preferable to arrest the wind."

This brought to my mind a perceived difficulty with causation, and the perceptions of causation in different cultures. It reminded me of the famous Justice Cardozo legal decision, Palzgraf v. LI Railroad.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1133&pid=22222