The fire burn the past, delete the remains, symbolizes purification, hopes and regeneration. The smoke moved by the wind give indication of the future year. The ashes, scattered in the field, push away curses and ensure abundant crops. Bonfire rituals happening on the 5th and 6th of January in the north-east of Italy are a strong deeply-rooted tradition that is centuries old and which celebrate seasonal cycles, life and death. The event takes place in fields around cities and villages where there is a strong existing community taking care of it. All the people involved are volunteers, they “do it for the community” and they think –“it’s a good celebration, it makes us feel united”. Since a few weeks before the event, the people involved collect the materials (old vegetation, hay, corn canes, evergreen and aromatic juniper) and only a few days before they assemble them in the traditional shape. Each group uses specific construction techniques to raise the ‘sculpture’, that vary in relation to the area, and are passed on between generations. Burning is the main moment of the feast. Hours of work that burn in one night. The fire that gets lit at the base quickly rise up the sculpture in the dark. It will be the wind that night to predict the future of the year. «Se il fum al va a soreli a mont, cjape il sac e va pal mont. Se il fum al va a soreli jevât, cjape il sac e va al marcjât» (“If the smoke goes west, take the sack and go to the world. If the smoke goes east, take the sack and go to the market.») The every year repeated ritual becomes a moment of identification. In a period of social changing it is a practice with spatial and temporal continuity that keeps a community together. Even if the meaning of these rituals have changed due to the societal evolution, their ongoing existence represent a moment of togetherness. It reflects the necessity to take distance from the digital, abstract and parallel reality faced by the contemporary society. The smell of the burned remains of the past stays impregnates on the clothes for days, and enduring is also the image and the sound of the cracking branches of vegetations. The fire, less and less present in our houses and lives, remain an attractive archaic element that make us feel a nostalgic ‘sense of community’.