Bengal light

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Bengali fire at Ulrichshusen Castle

Bengali fire ( Bengali light , Bengali flame or Bengalo for short ) is an effect of pyrotechnics using a white or colored pyrotechnic set . Bengal fires are used for effective lighting, for example of busts, statues, buildings and gardens. The color of the flame depends on the metal used and added to the fuel. A bright glow and intense smoke development are characteristic of Bengali fire, whereby it is also possible to produce flames with little smoke development.

A miniature version of this effect is the Bengali matchstick . It belongs to the smallest fireworks and is particularly popular in Germany.

Concept history

The term Bengali is derived from the name of the historical region of Bengal (now Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal ). The royal courts there were illuminated by colored lights that were generated by chemical reactions. Originally, the term Bengali fire only meant the light used to illuminate an object. Sulfur , the nitrate saltpeter and the mineral realgar were used to generate the light .

Bengal fires are mostly used in the form of torches - sometimes in combination with smoke sets - in baroque fireworks, for light images, for pyrotechnic lighting, at open-air concerts or as a warning signal and (sea) emergency signal .

Hazard potential

Schematic structure of a Bengali torch
Bengali fire (strong light hand torches) as warning signals

When using hand torches, magnesium is burned, among other things ; this creates a flame with a temperature between 1600 and 2500 ° C. Burns can also be caused if there is no direct contact with the fire. The intense light appearance can lead to massive dazzling effects with direct eye contact .

Suffocating the flame with sand, extinguishing it with water or fire extinguishers is often not possible. Fire protection manufacturers consider the safest method to be the use of an extinguishing agent on a gel basis, which prevents further ignition by means of strong cooling. The cardboard casing and the slag - usually dripping with torches - are so hot for a long time that they can cause serious burns even if they are briefly touched.

The flares develop very dense and intense smoke, which can lead to impaired vision and panic behavior within large crowds . Inhaling the smoke should be avoided for health reasons. However (as of 2014) there are no reliable studies on the health risk from smoke.

Bengal fires in football

Bengali fire at the UEFA Cup match between FC Parma and VfB Stuttgart 2005

Football fans have lit Bengal fires in the stadium since around the 1980s. Due to the risk of injury, the legal situation has been tightened in some countries. Many football associations, including the world football association FIFA and the European football association UEFA , impose high fines on the clubs involved for igniting pyrotechnics , which in Germany, for example, can also be passed on to those responsible.

  • Germany: The use of Bengali fires in all sports stadiums is prohibited by the stadium regulations or the assembly regulations (e.g. in Bavaria by Section 35 (2) VStättV). Anyone smuggling or lighting a Bengali fire into the stadium faces a nationwide stadium ban . The use of Bengal fires in sports facilities is also an administrative offense and, depending on the circumstances, can also be prosecuted as a criminal offense such as attempted dangerous bodily harm. The police have been training sniffer dogs to track down pyrotechnic objects since 2012 in order to prevent the smuggling of Bengali fire into stadiums. The German Football Association and the German Football League reject changes to the existing rules with reference to safety aspects.
  • Austria: On October 13, 2009 the federal government decided to amend the Pyrotechnics Act of 1974 with a view to events at football events. The Pyrotechnics Act 2010 came into force on January 4, 2010. This affects pyrotechnic objects with bang effects as well as all products that contain chemical substances that cause movement, light, smoke, fog, pressure or irritation effects (including Bengali fire). However, exemptions are possible.
  • Switzerland: On January 1, 2010 the “Hooligan Concordat” came into force. It enables state measures against violent criminals in the context of sporting events and defines, among other things, the carrying and use of pyrotechnics as violence within the meaning of the Concordat.

In Norway and the USA there were already individual areas in stadiums in 2005, in which certain types of pyrotechnics could be burned down in a controlled manner after prior notification.

literature

  • Bengal fire . In: Robert Blum (Ed.): General theater lexicon or encyclopedia of everything worth knowing for stage artists, amateurs and theater fans . DirectMedia Publ., Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89853-622-6 (1 CD-ROM; reprint of the Leipzig 1846 edition).
  • Bengal fire . In: Friedrich R. Kreißl, Otto Krätz (Hrsg.): Fire and Flame, Sound and Smoke. Show experiments and chemical history; Dedicated to Ernst Otto Fischer on the occasion of his 80th birthday . Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-527-32276-3 , pp. 92f.

Web links

Commons : Bengal Fire  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander P. Hardt: Pyrotechnics , Pyrotechnica Publications, Post Falls Idaho USA 2001, ISBN 0-929388-06-2 , pp. 74 ff.
  2. ^ Pyrotechnics in football stadiums - a hot box
  3. ↑ Lecture at the Nuremberg Conference 2013 ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pfa.nrw.de
  4. ↑ Newspaper article in the ( RP ) with a series of photos for a demonstration of Bengali fire and so-called “Polish guns”.
  5. ↑ http://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/id_77005016/osnabrueck-ultra-vor-gericht-pyro-rauch-nicht-gesundheitsschaedlich.html
  6. ↑ A short history of pyrotechnics in Germany. 11freunde.de, November 4, 2012, accessed January 3, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Injured at the Turkey Derby. rp-online.de, July 22, 2010, accessed on February 12, 2013 .
  8. ↑ If you bang, you have to pay. Spiegel Online, September 22, 2016, accessed May 20, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Attempted dangerous bodily harm by igniting “Bengalos”. Kuju's criminal defense, March 16, 2015, accessed May 20, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Pyrotechnics - police dogs in action as snoopers. stern.de , July 9, 2012, accessed on November 25, 2012 .
  11. ↑ DFB AND LIGA ASSOCIATION END DISCUSSION ABOUT PYROTECHNICS. German soccer band, accessed on May 20, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Christian Wachter: Since January 4th, new regulations apply to the placing on the market and the use of pyrotechnic objects. (No longer available online.) In: WKO.at. Austrian Chamber of Commerce, January 10, 2012, archived from the original on April 21, 2012 ; Retrieved June 1, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / portal.wko.at
  13. ^ Conference of the cantonal judicial and police directors: New Hooligan Concordat. (PDF) October 14, 2011, accessed on February 19, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Conference of the Cantonal Justice and Police Directors: The Hooligan Concordat comes into force. (No longer available online.) December 29, 2009, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on August 29, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kkjpd.ch
  15. ↑ The Swiss Hooligan Concordat (here version Nov 2007 with amendments from 2010) (PDF; 31 kB) defines in Article 2 Paragraph 2 the carrying of pyrotechnic objects in the context of sporting events as "violence".
  16. ↑ Edgar Lopez: The cold fire. In: Zeit Online . July 20, 2017, accessed April 1, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Do fans even want the safe pyro torch? Retrieved April 1, 2019 .
  18. ↑ EFFC 2017: Different approaches to legal pyrotechnics. Retrieved April 1, 2019 .