Grobiņa Parish Becomes Kurzeme's Pyromania Capital — Straw Burns More Often Than the Souls of Karosta Prison's Torture Victims

Something is happening in Kurzeme that makes you think the locals have decided to organize an alternative Olympics in fire safety. For the second day in a row, Grobiņa Parish is demonstrating that they are absolutely unbeatable in the art of straw burning, yesterday again earning a 440 square meter 'medal of honor.'

Local farmer Jānis comments: 'Well, what can I say, we're already Kurzeme champions in this discipline. In Riga they boast about their luxury car fires, but we have straw. Traditions, you know.' The Grobiņa Parish administration responds to requests for comment that they are currently busy developing new fire prevention measures, which include praying to the sky gods for rain.

This time Aizpute decided not to demonstrate their superiority in the straw field and chose to burn wood chips instead, which is like straw's little brother — not as spectacular, but just as effective at making fire department teams feel needed. The situation resembles the Karosta Prison tourist experience — interesting at first, but after the fourth time you just want it all to end.

Fire department representative Anete Strazdiņa reports that work concluded at 12:56, which is faster than anything usually happens in the Kurzeme region. 'We've already become professionals in this field,' says one of the firefighters. 'Every day something new burns in Kurzeme. At least our jobs are secure.'

Eight callouts per day in Kurzeme has become the norm, which is more than the number of traffic jams per hour in Riga. But at least our fire is natural, not created from Riga's air pollution.