Hurstwic / Eiríksstaðir Fire Festival: The Tactic of Burning the Longhouse

In our upcoming fire festival, we intend to analyze in detail the commonly-used Viking-age battle tactic of burning an opponent in his longhouse.
At a public festival at Eiríksstaðir in July, we plan to use experimental archaeology to test the tactic on the kind of wood-and-turf houses common in Viking-age Iceland. The house structures we build for the festival will be instrumented with sophisticated measurement devices and then burned in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the fire spreads, and the conditions for those trapped inside as they try to extinguish the flames or negotiate for a safe release.
Join us in this adventure at Eiríksstaðir in Iceland on July 5-7, 2024.
www.hurstwic.com/fire/