Fire-eating trio warms to art

FREDERICK, Md. (AP)

Adam Kline is no longer a clarinet player living safely like he was in high school - but he still doesn’t consider himself the type of person always looking for dangerous thrills.

Yet the Frederick man is a fire-eater performing in a trio that practices fire arts every week and suffers searing scars from swinging, swirling and swallowing flaming objects.

“When you’re eating fire,” Mr. Kline said, “it’s the wind that is the real enemy. It can gust up pretty quickly. You’ll have flames rushing across your mouth, your face and up your nose. And that’s not really any fun.”

Mr. Kline works in Gaithersburg as a biotech facilities manager but festivals are now hiring the trio - called Pyrotechnics - to perform at Maryland and Pennsylvania venues.

He practices every week with Eli Hanson, 28, of Gettysburg, Pa., and Jeff Asper, 34, of Oxford, Pa., at Mr. Asper’s home. Mr. Asper’s got a big yard where the three have room and time to practice spinning, blowing, breathing and eating fire.

Mr. Kline said Mr. Asper has “always been something of a daredevil” so he wasn’t surprised to see him swinging weighted socks - which were on fire - more than a year ago. Mr. Asper told Mr. Kline he was working with Ms. Hanson to learn the skills and play around.

After learning some techniques online and reading and researching various fire skills, all three went to a camp in Connecticut which taught them the basics.

“We started to see what we could do after that camp and started to push the envelope a little bit,” Mr. Kline said.

Ms. Hanson created a Middle Eastern-themed fire spinning performance where she twirls 18-inch ropes with flaming balls at the end while dancing to music like that of a belly dance.

Mr. Asper used the martial arts culture as inspiration for learning to spin and twirl 5-foot staffs - set on fire, of course.

And Mr. Kline keeps learning how to swallow flaming objects.

“Nothing to protect your mouth,” he said. “When you close your mouth, it generally goes out pretty quickly - like placing a cup over a candle. There’s enough saliva in there to prevent anything from happening as long as the torch doesn’t actually touch anything.”

Working with flames means Mr. Kline and other fire-eaters must use ultrapure lamp oil because of its high flash point and low toxins.

“It’s as safe a fuel as we can find, if there is such a thing,” Mr. Kline said. “And the taste isn’t that bad.”

But that doesn’t mean risk is eliminated - not even close.

“We’ve all had minor burns,” Mr. Kline said, whose stomach is scarred from a flying blue flame during a practice session. “I was spinning with my shirt off and was transfixed when a little fuel, a blue flame, hit me. It comes with the territory.”

Mr. Kline said he normally shaves his arms and other areas of his body before a performance so he doesn’t have to face the smell of burning hair. It comes in handy when he and Mr. Asper pass flames across their back, down their shoulder and arm to one another to light a torch held in their hand.

The trio performs free every Saturday night at a Gettysburg bed and breakfast that Ms. Hanson’s family owns.

Right now, the group likes making the extra money and each person loves performing.

“Basically, we want to be able to cover our gas - for the drive - and our fuel expenses,” Mr. Kline said. “I don’t know if it’ll ever become a career, a career sounds like a job, which means work. I don’t want this to become work.”

“I don’t think this will ever seem like work,” Mr. Asper, a robotics technician, quipped.