Bonfire

[5] In many regions of continental Europe, bonfires are made traditionally on 24 June,[citation needed] the solemnity of John the Baptist, as well as on Saturday night before Easter.

[citation needed] Bonfires are also a feature of Walpurgis Night in central and northern Europe, and the celebrations on the eve of St. John's Day in Spain.

In Austria, the custom of the "Osterfeuer" or Easter fires is widespread, but also regulated in some cities, districts and countries to hold down the resulting annual peak of PM10-dust emission.

The festival was probably originally celebrated when the moon was full closest to the day exactly between the spring equinox and summer solstice.

Legislation about bonfires varies between states, metropolitan and rural regions, local government areas, and property types.

[7] For example, in urban areas of Canberra bonfires may be lit around the King's Official Birthday if local fire authorities are notified; however, they are banned the rest of the year.

In France the bonfire celebrates Jean le Baptiste during the Fête de la Saint-Jean ("St John's Day"), first Saturday after the solstice, about 24 June.

In India particularly in Punjab, people gather around a bonfire and eat peanuts and sweets during the festival of Lohri to celebrate the winter solstice which occurred during the Indian month of Magh.

During the ten days of Vijayadashami, effigies of Ravana, his brother Kumbhakarna and son Meghanad are erected and burnt by enthusiastic youths at sunset.

Loosely translated as Wednesday Light, from the word sur, which means light in Persian, or more plausibly, consider sur to be a variant of sorkh (red) and take it to refer either to the fire itself or to the ruddiness (sorkhi), meaning good health or ripeness, supposedly obtained by jumping over it, is an ancient Iranian festival dating back to at least 1700 BCE of the early Zoroastrian era.

Loosely translated, this means you want the fire to take your pallor, sickness, and problems and in turn give you redness, warmth, and energy.

There are Zoroastrian religious significance attached to Chahārshanbeh Suri and it serves as a cultural festival for Iranian and Iranic people.

Ancient Persians celebrated the last 5 days of the year in their annual obligation feast of all souls, Hamaspathmaedaya (Farvardigan or popularly Forodigan).

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is accredited with having composed the Kabalistic work The Zohar (literally "The Shining" – hence the custom of lighting fire to commemorate him).

The main celebration takes place at Rabbi Shimon's tomb on Mount Meron in northern Israel, but all over the country bonfires are lit in open spaces.

In Northeast Italy the celebration Panevin (in English "bread and wine"), Foghera and Pignarûl is held on the evening of Epiphany (5 January).

The Northern Italian La vecchia ("the old lady") is a version of the wicker man bonfire effigy, which is burned once a year as part of town festivals.

In Abbadia San Salvatore, a village in the south of Tuscany, bonfires called fiaccole up to seven meters high are burned during Christmas Eve to warm up people around them waiting for the midnight, following a millenary tradition.

Every 16 August the ancient city of Kyoto holds the Gozan no Okuribi, a Buddhist bonfire-based spectacle, which marks the end of the *O-Bon season.

[12] In Lithuania bonfires are lit to celebrate St John's Eve (aka: Rasos (Dew Holiday)) during the midsummer festival.

In Poland bonfires are traditionally and still enthusiastic burned during Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Pentecost day and Saint John Night as Sobótki,[13] ognie świętojańskie[14](Śląsk, Małopolska, Podkarpacie), Palinocka (Warmia, Mazury, Kaszuby) or Noc Kupały (Mazowsze and Podlasie) on 23/24 June.

Varro and Ovid relate, that in the Palilia, celebrated in honour of the goddess Pales, on 20 April, the anniversary of the foundation of Rome, the young Romans leaped over burning bundles of hay.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, bonfires are traditionally lit on the evening before 1 May, commemorating Labour Day[citation needed] .

Bonfires are also being built on the eve of the Christian holiday Easter on so called Holy Saturday and are lit next day early in the morning.

Young men and children all gather on some plane remote from village and start building a bonfire by collecting logs of wood, or pruned branches from vineyards and orchards.

In the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries bonfires are lit on Guy Fawkes Night[17] a yearly celebration held on the evening of 5 November to mark the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605, in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to destroy the House of Lords in London.

In New England, on the night before the Fourth of July, towns competed to build towering pyramids, assembled from hogsheads, barrels and casks.

Eventually students began clearing land in the area, by hand, to harvest thousands of logs needed for its construction.

Bonfires are used on farms, in large gardens and allotments to dispose of waste plant material that is not readily composted.

[24] Garden and farm bonfires are frequently smoky and can cause local nuisance if poorly managed or lit in unsuitable weather conditions.