| Re: Liestal Fastnacht information
I remember my first experience of the Chienbase in Liestal. This is part of an article I wrote for a camera magazine about the event.
" It is a picturesque town with plenty for the photographer or visitor to see. There are murals on some of the old wooden buildings which depict scenes from some of Liestals' rich and diverse history. Once a year as part of the Fasnacht celebrations, the locals try to burn the town to the ground!
A friend of mine had been asking me to go to this procession for nearly a year. She promised me that it was well worth seeing. She said that the locals "carried fire through the streets." Which I took to mean that they held flaming torches aloft. Eventually I agreed and headed towards Liestal.
When I arrived I was surprised to see so many people. The narrow streets were jam packed shoulder to shoulder with sightseers. I also noticed that there were lots of firemen standing around with buckets of water and even watering cans!
There were fire engines parked in every second side street. I thought that this was a bit of overkill on the part of the fire department......little did I realise...
At 8:00pm the street lights went out and a cheer went up from the crowd. I looked through the clock tower arch towards where the procession was to arrive and saw a few burning torches coming towards us. This was the start of the procession. A few locals dressed in costume were pulling a wagon proclaiming the start of the procession. All seemed to be going peacefully and I was still under the impression that the fire department were overreacting until I looked through the arch and into the distance...
The road which led towards where I was standing was brightly illuminated by lots of moving bonfires.
As they drew nearer I could see that the bonfires were mounted on wagons being pulled by up to six people. At the back were two more "pullers" whose job was to make sure that the wagon didn't go out of control. When the first mobile bonfire came through the arch, and the flames shot into the air, the crowd went wild.
Some hardy souls carried baskets of fire on their shoulders. But still those mobile bonfires kept coming......and they got bigger and bigger. After each bonfire came by, the firemen would hose the roof of the wooden arch down!
Every now and then, the exhausted pullers and pushers would stop to catch their breath. If you were unlucky enough, they would stop beside you!! The heat was intense and the crowd being packed so tight that it is unable to move back. At one stage I thought that my hair was going to catch fire. My jeans felt hot to the touch and I thought that I might spontaneously combust!! Luckily, a fireman threw a fire blanket over me and several other grateful witnesses. Firemen and marshalls also carry watering cans which they sprinkle on the spectators.
The air was alight with sparks and the road was covered in glowing and burning embers. All this made changing lenses quite difficult as there was thick smoke and ash everywhere. In fact, when I arrived home a few hours later, my camera gear was covered in a thick layer of black dust."
If you are going to the fire festival then be sure to wear dark covered clothes as you will get dirty. Keep your expensive cameras (be they video, digital or whatever) covered or protected. There's' also a thick layer of ash that hangs in the air making it sometimes difficult to breathe.
Here are two of my favourite images from that event.
Last edited by Flashman4; 05.02.2008 at 09:02.
Reason: spelling
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