Derek writes me today to tell me about a 43ft straw goat sitting dead-center in the Swedish town of Gävle. Now a huge straw goat just sitting right out there in the open is obviously a target for sabotage, but the Swedes have won a special place in my heart by making a tradition out of burning these things to the ground. Apparently in the 40 years they’ve been putting them up, 66 goats have been built and 35 of them have been destroyed. Despite the government’s unending attempts to protect them by surrounding the straw target with a huge fence fewer than half of these festive goats have survived.
Derek Writes:
It has been destroyed almost every year by some creative individual. Many times it has been burned down. One time it was ripped apart. Another time I guy ran his car through the fence and into the goat, tipping it over. A few years ago an American got caught, put in jail, and fined a lot of money. Last year some other guy was a bit smarter, hitting it with a flaming arrow from a bow, and he wasn’t caught. It went up in flames!
There is even a webcam trained on the goat 24/7! The discussion boards have had some excitement as the occasional fire truck rolls by, but the goat still stands, defying us.
I have to say that this is one Christmas tradition that I can really get behind! Aparently I’m not alone either, as some have gone so far as to setup discussion boards to try to figure out how to take this thing down.
It would seem that the government is not messing around this year though. There is the webcam of course, but they have also hired a British firm to drench the entire goat in Noflan Flammestopp which is a Complex of Alkyl-Phosphonates designed to keep just about anything from burning. The company has thrown down the gauntlet by guraenteeing that the “goat will not burn this year”.
That sounds like taunting to me.
Many ideas on how to destroy this goat have been tossed around, but it all comes down to a few possible end results.
- Burn it
- Blow it up
- Decapitate it
- Split it in half so it falls over
- Cut off a leg to tip it over
- Make it yummy so animals eat it
- Make it disappear (I wonder if Roderick is up for this one?)
- Transform it into something else
Some things to think about and important facts about the goats location:
- Disguise would be needed because of the webcams.
- The fire department is about 3 streets away and can respond quickly.
Some ideas that have been tossed around about how to destroy to goat are:
- Could there be a chemical that you mix with the flame retardant, and the two react and the result is combustible or corrosive?
- Blow something up nearby to cause a diversion.
- Span a hot-wire (like the kind used to cut styrofoam) across its back under tension, and in several hours it would burn through the hay, chop it in half, and then you could pull it apart so both halves tip over).
- Tie chains around the legs and tie them to cars – when the cars pull away they might rip apart the legs.
- Put it on rollers and if it’s on a slant it could go rolling down the hill.
- Put a mirror on the ground and a focusing frensel lens on a building… focus the sun onto the mirror, then the focused light hits the underbelly of the goat (where maybe people won’t notice it) and it can heat up and cut through the belly until it spontaneously ignites.
- Put acid on the thing so that it dissolves.
- Span ropes from building to building above it and work from above, but it would be easy to catch us. We would need a diversion.
- Frame someone else.
- Fake it at one moment or day, and then follow up hours or a day later when people are breathing a sigh of relief.
- We could dress like city workers and act like we are picking up trash around the thing.
- Turn it into something else, like a Christmas tree – somehow.
- Make it grow fur or paint it or put clothes on it.
Since tradition would have us burn it down, it is my feeling that this is the best option. There has been some talk that enough water would wash away the Alkyl-Phosphonates enough for the goat to be set ablaze, but that leaves the problem of getting it dry in time. It seems that the most promising route would be to neutralize the flame retardant enough to get it to catch fire… Any chemistry heads out there? There is plenty of news coverage for the person who manages it.
UPDATE: The Gävle Goat has survived an attack from arsonists on the 15 December. Somebody tried to set one of the legs on fire, but the fire was immediately stopped by the flame retardant chemicals. Some straw was bruned, but they have replaced now, says Anna Ostman, spokeswoman of the Goat Committee.
UPDATE: The Natural Science Club goat has burned, but the larger Southern Merchants Association goat still stands in defiance.
I think a good oxygen backed fire would do the trick, but I can’t come up with a way to get K bottles of O2 over that fence…
My dad seems to think white phosphorus might be the best way to go.
It seems to me that the fire-retardant coating is only on the outside of the goat, so one would need to sneak under the goat, bore a hole through the belly of the beast, and get a fire going on the inside. Fireworks might help with that, but you’ll really need a sticky flammable substance to get this thing going…
True, but I still feel there would be an oxygen problem even if the goat was ignited from within. The pathetic .21% O2 in the air would quickly be exhausted unless there was a way for the fire to draw fresh air into the festive goat.
Most fire-proofers produce inert gas when burned, thus smothering the fire. I like the idea of lighting it up from the inside, but I still feel we need to find a way of getting the F02 inside or around the goat above .21%
Show town officials a receipt for buying the goat and ask to have it deliveered.
The way I see it, a good flame under the goat should do it. Put a well oiled/gas-soaked pile of wood on a trailer, drive under the goat, detach the trailer, and drive off after igniting it.
The off-gassing fire retardants shouldn’t affect the fire below, and the flames could smolder the goat until it finally ignites. Of course, a few bottles of accelerant tossed inside the goat wouldn’t hurt.
Ok, after reading your comments, I want alibis for all of you and an explanation of where in hell my Christmas decorations went! ;-p
Well, Derek was in Gävle (and failed miserably to burn down the goat, I might add), and I was in Reno… Sorry to hear that your decorations were taken. Rotten jerks!
I think that the best approach would be to do what no one would expect, not to burn the goat! But instead order a hose on eBay then locate the nearest fire hydrant and wash the straw away. What could the fire department do to fight back? What good would fire retardant do then?
The julebok is a big tradition in Sweden and Norway at christmas time. It is NOT the tradition to burn the goat. It is just tradition to have the large goat in said swedish town.
I dont really have a problem and cant really understand why you guys are fixated on wanting to get rid of it.
Perhaps you could use your efforts to burn something that is really mpore of an eyesore.
I say we round up about 10 people and build our own straw goat and get inside, roll it right up to the gate, they would see it as a peace offering and put it(us) inside next to the real one, then when the web cam is turned away we strike
Michael,
Nice take on the old Trajan Horse play… I think that might work!