Firefighters in China have issued a stark warning regarding the alarming trend of setting off firecrackers around plain flour, a practice that has rapidly gained popularity on the social media platform RedNote.
This activity has been trending for several months, with many young individuals posting videos of themselves posing coolly amid the clouds of flour created by igniting paper or firecrackers.
The videos are often accompanied by captions such as “being cool is a style” and “light fireworks like this when you celebrate Lunar New Year at home.”
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Participants typically begin by tossing a piece of lit paper into the air before hurling a handful of flour at it, resulting in a small explosion of flames, which they have dubbed “the art of controlling the fire.”
In January, various government and police department accounts in China published an article to caution against this hazardous behaviour.
A fire brigade based in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province conducted an experiment in which they placed a firecracker atop a 2.5kg pile of flour.
Upon ignition, the firecracker triggered an explosive reaction in the flour, producing a towering mushroom cloud that reached over 5 metres high, generating intense flames and igniting nearby combustible materials.
Zhang Yili, one of the firefighters involved in the experiment, cautioned that what many perceive as a fun activity is, in reality, “extremely dangerous”.
Zhang noted that the explosion of flour generates heat capable of inflicting severe burns.
“The flour is highly uncontrollable and can easily lead to irreversible damage,” he explained.
Chinese law stipulates that individuals causing property damage may face administrative detention of up to 15 days, while those responsible for significant harm that constitutes a crime could face imprisonment of up to 10 years.
Despite many of these videos remaining available on RedNote, searching for related keywords on the platform triggers a safety warning.
An increasing number of online observers have left critical comments beneath these videos.
“How dare you play with fire like this? It is arson,” one commenter remarked.
“The prison is waiting for you,” another added.
“I will report every time I see such a dangerous video on this platform,” another user commented.
Fortunately, no injuries have been reported in connection with this dangerous trend.
In 2021, a villager in central China’s Henan province caused explosions when he tossed flour into the air while igniting firecrackers to celebrate a wedding.
Last December, police in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province penalised a fireworks seller for storing firecrackers alongside bags of flour.
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