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Solstice Bonfires

7 min read

Every solstice, we invite friends over to build a big “effigy” out of scrap wood and light it on fire at sunset.

You may ask (as many do): “Is this some kind of pagan thing?”
And the answer is: If you want it to be, sure!

Everyone brings their own meaning to the event.

Mostly, we just think it’s a great excuse to spend a day outside, make weird art out of junk, and stand around a big fire with people we like.1 People have been gathering around fires for thousands of years, and it’s still great every time.

We’re big on building community, and getting a bunch of your favorite weirdos 2 together to build a big sculpture and set it on fire is a great way to connect.

Attendees are encouraged to bring stuff to add into the fire. It can be sentiments or intentions written down, sentimental objects to let go of, durable objects to “cleanse” or patina, or just to burn for fun.

The design of each effigy is made up on the day based on what materials have been collected and whatever seems fun. All attendees are encouraged to participate in the creative building process. Basically, we just go nuts on a pile of wood with an 18 gauge finish nailer (and selective use of framing nailer for the structural bits).

It’s very fun, creative, and collaborative.

During cleanup, some charcoal is collected from each fire to be added to the next one. Thus there is a direct physical connection between each fire, going back to the first one in December 2024.

There is, of course, also a bunch of nails and miscellaneous bits left over. So after each fire, I thoroughly sweep the burn area with a floor magnet until I can pass over the whole area without anything sticking to it. I use my truck in the field sometimes, and I don’t want any surprise nails in my tires. This process is actually pretty fun because, as I sift through the pile I get to find all kinds of cool looking bits that survived the blaze. By the time I’m done, it looks like this.

Past Burns

Winter 2025

We finally ripped out a large section of the rotten old pink fence, and so the pink slats featured heavily in this burn. Some of the attendees really took to painting lots of fun details on this one. Another person brought a handful of ground spinning fireworks, so we tossed those in! It was definitely the most colorful effigy so far, both before and after setting alight.

The main structure of this one was formed by 2 extra large pallets connected by a pair of 2x4s to form a large ‘H’. Only one framing nail went in at each connection, yet this core structure lasted until almost everything else had burned. Atop the 2x4s was a white cabinet that a neighbor put out for free many months ago. I grabbed it, thinking I would use it in the shop, but instead, it just sat around taking up space. I figured it would make the perfect receptacle for attendees’ “sacrifices”, so into the fire it went!

With the extra long beam that the head is mounted on plus the “antlers”, this is the tallest of the effigies so far. I’d estimate it to be about 20ft/6m from ground to the tallest twig. Those pallets were about 4ft x 6ft, so the head is probably about 12ft up.

No flame tubes this time around. But I did cut out the top and bottom of the white cabinet and build a sort of skirt around the bottom to funnel the fire up through the cavity. Thus ensuring that all of the contents were thoroughly incinerated.

This was a very rainy build day. So while I did dry out all the wood beforehand and keep it under cover as long as possible, it got quite wet during the 3 hours of building. It had enough of a roof to protect the base fire (which we build last out of the smallest, driest material) as it grew and eventually caught everything.

Summer 2025

Because the fire tubes worked so well on the previous one, I wanted to play with the idea of redirecting the fire more. I remembered seeing a mesmerizing pattern of flame spreading along the ceiling on the ride Escape from Pompeii and was hoping to get something like that under the angled “roof” in this fire. I was also hoping to direct some flames to flow out through a radiating set of fire tubes. That didn’t quite work, but it was still a great fire.

I now realize that the pattern of slow spreading cellular flames coming from propane that I saw on the ride are very different than the fast moving vertical flames of a large wood fire. And the sheer volume of flow hitting that surface was way too much for the piddly little 3 sided flame tubes to do much. It was like a waterfall hitting a fountain designed for a gentle trickle. I don’t think I’ll get that cellular pattern with a bonfire, but I can play more with having fire tubes direct flames out from a central chamber.

This was the first fire where we started adding surface decoration (paint). And while I completely avoided laminated wood (plywood, OSB) in the first fire, I did use some in this one to get that nice big flat surface.

The pink wood that became the forked tongue at the last minute is bits of an old fence on our property that’s been falling apart since before we moved in. The “hair” is mostly Scotch Broom that I pulled out from our yard. Nasty invasive stuff with really tough roots that grows like crazy in the PNW. I bought a special tool called a Pullerbear back in 2018 specifically for ripping the stuff out of the ground.

Winter 2024

Our first solstice fire! You can see from the photos that we definitely did not get it lit at sunset. But it was still awesome, and I learned a lot about the process.

During the build, I realized that the fire would shoot up the middle and the wings would probably fall off, unburnt. So I added a “fire tube” made from pallet slats to each wing. These projected into the body with openings facing downwards to catch some rising flames and redirect them out to the wings. You can see these in the second photo below. (The one with my Kei Truck under the green canopy.) These fire tubes actually worked really well, and you can see fire shooting out of them in the photo above (and the last one below).

The wings were still the last part to burn, but I learned that I can sculpt the path of the flames.

Footnotes

  1. I do think the Wheel of the Year is a cool way to acknowledge and get in tune with the changing seasons, though. ↩

  2. Of course, I mean “weirdos” lovingly. I’m a weirdo, and if you’ve been invited to one of our fires, you probably are too. I love that about you! ↩

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