Beacons

How to have a safe VE day:

Preparing the beacon

• Set up the beacon well away from anything that could catch fire, taking into account wind direction.
• Make sure that the smoke plume will not affect residential areas, roads, and access points (again, taking into account the wind direction).
• When lighting a controlled burn (such as a VE beacon bonfire), it is illegal to leave a fire unattended or to have too few people to control it.

Lighting and managing the beacon

• Never use accelerants (such as lighter fluid, petrol, white spirit, methylated spirits and paraffin) to light a bonfire.
• Light the fire using tapers on long poles (at least 2m).
• Keep a source of water nearby in case the fire needs extinguishing. 

Public safety near the beacon

• Make sure that you have a well-constructed cordon between the fire and the people (distance will depend on size of bonfire).
• Have first aid facilities available, including a burns pack or quick access to lots of clean water.
• Make sure that you have plenty of highly visible marshals who have received some instruction to help control the crowd.

When the beacon is finished

• Use water to put out the fire at the end.
• Always ensure that a fire is completely out before you leave it and check the next day to ensure that it has not reignited.

There are 4 types of beacon: 

Gas bottled 

• Ensure gas bottles are situated as far from the beacon as possible but to also ensure gas piping isn’t too tight
• Beacons should be suitably anchored to the ground to ensure they do not fall over.

Brazier

• A safe cordoned area should be in place to make sure debris and embers do not affect the public.
• Cordoned area should be well saturated or dug over to stop fire spread especially due to the dry period.

Bonfire

• Bonfires need to be situated well away from building and other structures.
• Build them in the shape of a pyramid.
• Consider the wind direction to consider where embers may travel to.

Bishop’s Frome Strawman

• These should be built well away from buildings and other structures.
• Ensure good and safe construction using banding to help in holding together
• The cordon area should be a minimum of one and a half the distance against the height of the structure. For example – if the height is 2 metres the cordon area should be 3 metres around the structure.

Please let us know if you plan to light a beacon in advance. 

Call our non-emergency number 01376 576000 and tell us the accurate location (we recommend using the What3words app).

Our Control team will log the VE beacons as ‘controlled burns’ and this will help us to avoid sending fire engines to false alarms when they could be responding to a real emergency.