On the last night of Obon, bonfires laid out in enormous shapes are lit on five mountains around Kyoto: the character for great on Daimonji-yama first at eight o'clock, then wondrous dharma, then a boat, then another great, then a torii gate, at five-minute intervals.
They are sending fires — okuribi — lighting the way for the ancestral spirits to return.
No attendance figure is collected in this pass.
The date is fixed at 16 August. Each fire is maintained by the households of the district below its mountain, who carry the wood up by hand, and the practice is inherited rather than organised by the city.
The Kamo riverbanks and the hotel roofs are where Kyoto watches from; the characters are legible only from the correct side of the city.
PlanningFixed on 16 August, the last night of Obon; the five fires are lit at five-minute intervals from 20:00.
Dates
computed from the rule
Computed from the recurrence rule we record for this entry, not copied from a listing. A date marked ~ comes from a calendar conversion and the observance may fall a day or two either side.