Fire Twirling

By Jeffrey Ressner

IDEA Take two fireballs connected by chain, and twirl for hypnotic effect

HOW IT STARTED Thought to have been invented by Maoris, now picked up by the neo-hippie party crowd

JUDGMENT CALL Very, very hot despite--or because of--its danger

Michele Ravera's e-mail address vividly describes her new hobby--heylady youreonfire@hotmail.com Ravera's a fire spinner. To get her jollies, she plays with two clumps of flaming, kerosene-soaked cotton wadding connected by a chain. As Letterman would say, Kids, don't try this at home. Visually spectacular--and spectacularly dangerous--fire spinning can now be seen not just at the Burning Man festival or in Phish-concert parking lots but also at New York City's touristy South Street Seaport and Los Angeles' Venice Beach. "When those flames are whooshing around me," sighs Ravera, "I feel like I'm in an adrenaline-fueled Eden."

Lance Kirley of Leverett, Mass., saw his first fire show in Thailand two years ago and just left a job restoring colonial homes to devote full time to poi (another name for the practice). "It's almost a religion for me," he says, citing "the rushy, on-edge feeling anything can happen at any moment." Last May something did happen: entertaining at a friend's graduation, Kirley accidentally set the lawn ablaze. Now he hopes to create juggling products using nonflammable chemicals found in glow sticks.

--By Jeffrey Ressner