Fire and Ice, The Birthday Cake

I created this large ice chimney at the Ice on Whyte festival this January, 2013 with the help of Larry Andreoff. It is made out of 72 blocks of ice, each 40x20x10 inches, and 270 lbs. I cut every block in half and then created 3 towers of various heights surrounding each other with a 3 foot corridor between them. The tallest tower was 6x6feet square and 12 feet tall. I stuffed the center of it with wood, paper, and cardboard. I build another wall around that tower and before I stuffed the corridor full of wood I laid down a track system to carry fuel all the way around. The shortest outside wall I completed, then also laid a track around the inside of it for fuel.
The last day of the festival was really warm, plus 8 degrees Celsius and full sun, which damaged the ice greatly but the birthday cake(Ice on Whyte was celebrating its 10th anniversary) ice structure stood up.
We lit the ice chimney the last day of the festival an hour after sunset to great fanfare, cheering and taiko drumming. The tracking worked perfectly and the liquid naphtha I poured into it all lit on fire and caught all my kindling. It was beautiful.
About 20 minutes into the bonfire, the center tower collapsed, and slowed the burning process considerably. IT took about 3 hours for all the wood to burn. My best one yet.