The Oregon Legislature has banned the use of sky lanterns, deciding that the release of unoperated flying balls of fire might be dangerous.

As of Sunday, anyone caught releasing the lanterns — also known as aerial luminaries — could incur a $2,000 fine.

The decision was announced Wednesday in a press release by the State Fire Marshal’s office. Office spokesman Rich Hoover said he doesn’t believe the activity has taken off in Oregon as it has in other places. Neither had he heard of an instance in which a sky lantern started a fire in Oregon, but said the ban was proactive.

Sky lanterns are small, unpiloted hot air balloons made of rice paper. The heat source — a candle or a small cube soaked in flammable liquid — heats the air trapped in the paper bag to make it float. They are cheap, around $20 on Amazon.com, and are often released in large groups, creating a beautiful, fiery effect against the night sky. However, over the past decade, sky lanterns have at times wreaked unintended havoc.

In principle, the lantern will soar as long as the flame is lit. When the flame goes out, the thinking goes, it will float to the earth without presenting a fire hazard.

However, it won’t always work as planned, said Bend Fire Department Fire Marshal Larry Medina.

“Here, in an arid desert, if it lands in the woods, everyone can agree that isn’t the best circumstance,” Medina said.

According to the Daily Mail, cows in China have died from eating the lanterns after they return to the ground. In 2011, lanterns ignited a brush covered field, leading to an 800-acre fire in South Carolina. Such unfortunate events have prompted a backlash, fueled by anti-lantern websites such as wildfiretoday.com and balloonsblow.org. The activity has been outlawed throughout the country, with unofficial counts claiming as many as 29 states banning use of the lanterns.

Medina said the department is in favor of Oregon’s ban. He said Bend’s fire department generally tries to find ways to regulate activities to allow for both fun and safety. But with an object over which users have no control, that is impossible.

“With a lantern, it goes up into the sky and the wind takes it,” he said. “You don’t have control of the wind, and you don’t have control of the weather.”

Medina said they could get stuck in a tree or on the siding or roof of a house and start a fire shortly after being launched. Medina said he has experienced a lantern launch at Cannon Beach, and the next day he found remnants of the paper balloons littered all over the beach. He said even when the flame goes out, there is a small ember floating around, ripe to ignite dry brush or other flammable material.

Because the lanterns are at the mercy of the wind, they can end up in all kinds of places, such as private property or a forest, and from one fire department’s jurisdiction into another, Medina said.

“It would just be like someone shooting fireworks into your backyard, or into the forest,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-383-0376, awieber@bendbulletin.com