The traditional event, “Kyoto Gozan-Bonfire” is one of the annual fire festivals carried out at the Eastern, Northern and Western Mountain surrounding Kyoto city on August 16. It is in conjunction with the famous O-bon festival in Japan, a tradition of seeing the spirits of the dead off. Ritual organizing committees exist at Ginkakuji, Matsugasaki, Nishigamo, Kinugasa and Saga areas. This special tradition is no longer confined to these special areas, but has expanded to involve wider a resident of Kyoto and Japanese. Traditionally, Japanese red pines had been used as bonfire material and also as local resources for daily life or annual events, but the fuel revolution in 1955 caused abandonment of forestry management. As a result, red pines are scarce and only one of five organizing committees can barely manage to get them. There are other additional problems in continuing this tradition despite the people’s intentions to preserve. So, we studied to distinguish the morphology of each bonfire and features of the ritual organizing committees and what is necessary to make this event a success from three point of views: material, talented personnel and funding.
