Is It Legal to Use a Lit Candle in a Louisiana Jack-O-Lantern?

On the last day of October, it's not uncommon to see them flickering in the fall breezes of late October. They add an air of "spooky" to the spooky season and let's face it, without a carved and lit pumpkin on the front porch, are you really celebrating Halloween?

The idea of putting a fire inside a carved vegetable is not new. The Irish were allegedly carving faces into turnips hundreds of years ago and that's how the tradition got started. The name Jack-O-Lantern actually comes from an old Irish tale about a man named Stingy Jack. The story has to do with a bar bet between a guy named Jack and the Devil. You can see how it all turns out right here.

So, we've established why we put lit flames inside gourds, turnips, and pumpkins but the real question is this, with conditions being so dry around the region should you put a lit candle inside a pumpkin for Halloween in Louisiana?

When it comes to fire and smoke, we like to involve the experts and in Louisiana, that means the Office of the Louisiana State Fire Marshal. We reached out to Ashley Rodrigue who is the Public Affairs director for the Louisiana State Fire Marshal's Office and we asked her this question

In Louisiana Is It Against the Law to Use a Lit Candle Inside a Pumpkin?

Here is Ashley's response to our query:

Even outside of a burn ban, we do not advise using candles in Halloween decorations at all. Certainly within one, we'd advise more strongly against it.

So, to paraphrase the position of the Louisiana State Fire Marshal's Office it's not against the law to light your pumpkin with a real candle and flame. However, the State Fire Marshal's Office would really appreciate it if you didn't.

We also asked if a candle in a pumpkin would be considered to be a violation of a Louisiana burn ban, Here's how Ashely responded to that question:

because a Jack-o-Lantern is contained, a candle inside of it isn't considered open burning. The use of open flames in fire pits, campfires, barrels, bonfires, burn piles and like-open burning is included in the burn ban.

The National Weather Service has not yet issued an official forecast for Halloween night across Louisiana. But we do know the next several days, like the previous several days will provide very little rainfall to the area. We could be facing very dry conditions once again this Halloween. So, plan accordingly.