For the second time this year, thousands of lanterns will illuminate the sky over Utah Motorsports Campus after the event was approved by the Grantsville City Council on Wednesday.
The Lantern Fest, which hosted similar events in May and last September, is slated to run on Aug. 20 at the racing complex. During the festival this spring, more than 7,000 people attended, according to Grantsville Mayor Brent Marshall.
The event donates a portion of its proceeds to the nonprofit Angels of America’s Fallen, an organization that provides positive mentoring and developmental activities for children of military, police and first responders who die in the line of duty.
While no representatives from The Lantern Fest attended Wednesday’s meeting, Grantsville Fire Marshal Kent Liddiard said he was “lukewarm” to a reprisal of the lantern launch, but the previous events had gone off without a hitch. He said firefighters from Grantsville and Tooele fire departments, as well as the North Tooele Fire District, would patrol areas for lanterns as they came down to monitor for fire hazards.
“If we impose the same launching conditions on them as far as wind speed that we have on the others, they should be dead when they hit the ground,” Liddiard said. “And anything that does come down should be able to be quickly put out.”
Grantsville Councilwoman Jewel Allen asked if event organizers had been cooperative with wind restrictions in the past. The city required The Lantern Fest to terminate the launch if wind speeds got too high, due to the potential of lanterns ending up outside of the launch areas.
“If you don’t impose the wind speed conditions on it, you can’t get the lanterns into the air anyways, and it’s a failure regardless,” Liddiard said. “As long as the wind speed is within clearance, it goes well. If the wind speed is too high, you can’t get them to launch.”
Marshall said the higher winds could blow the paper into the flame, which prevents the lantern from floating into the sky.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center’s fire potential outlook released in May, the wildfire potential in Utah is expected to be average across the summer months of June, July and August.
The first Lantern Fest was held at Bonneville Seabase last September, but event organizers moved to UMC due to its better amenities and ability to host more people.
Passes for the lantern festival begin at $25 and become progressively more expensive as the event draws nearer, with the same pass costing $50 the day of the event. The pass includes a lantern, marker, lighter and s’mores kit.